Having worked with children for the majority of my adult life, I have tried out a few (million) play dough recipes. This has to be the best one I’ve found and is now my go to recipe. Its quick, It’s simple and it is incredibly versatile meaning you can add colouring and scents of your choice to customize you dough to how you want it. Also, the great thing about homemade play dough, is that you know whats in it. Meaning its not the end of the world if your tiny human has a little nibble!
This particular play dough recipe feature autumnal shades and warm spices, that fit the season perfectly.
You will need:
2 cups of plain flour
1 cup of salt
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 and half cups of just-boiled water
Spices and food colouring of your choice
Molly was all set with her wooden spoon, smacking it on the table and shouting at the top of her lungs. She also got sassy a few times because I wouldn’t allow her to eat the pot of cinnamon.I know, I’m such a bad mum!
In a large mixing bowl, mix together all of your dry ingredients with the oil. Before we added the oil, we got Molly to feel the dry ingredients with her hands, giving her a chance to explore. I put some flour on her tray and she loved pressing it, picking it up and even tasting it. With things like this it’s always nice to allow kids to get messy.
After Molly had her fun with flour, we added it with the salt and the oil. I tend to double the batch and split it into 4 bowls. I then add spices to each one. This time around we chose Nutmeg, Ginger, Cinnamon and All spice. I would have gone for Cloves, but we didn’t have any. So All spice was the next best thing! Molly didn’t quite understand us when we tried to get her to smell the spices. She thought we were going to pour it into her mouth and got rather upset when I wouldn’t let her chug the Cinnamon.
By holding two choices of food colouring in front of Molly, we allowed her to choose which one we did first. She kept looking at both, as well as grabbing both at the same time, before eventually throwing the red one on the floor. Yellow won. Giving your child the chance to make choices for them self is a great way of involving them with decision making. It doesn’t matter how old they are. You can go by eye contact or physical contact.
We then added food colouring to each bowl. The most autumnal colours we went thought were red, green, yellow and orange. If you want to try and make the colours more vibrant, you could try adding paint instead of food colouring. I haven’t tried this method yet but have heard it works well.
Then we poured a little water at a time into each bowl and stirred until it started to come together. By doing hand over hand, Molly helped Liam stir all the ingredients together. She was really interested in this part, holding the spoon and making all sorts of weird noises due to the excitement.
Once everything was combined we then tipped it out and give it a good knead for a few minutes. You may need to add some more flour to help make it more dough like and less sticky. It may take a few minutes of working it all together, once done you’re ready to play!
Molly loved playing with the play dough. This will be such a quick activity to now grab and go over the Autumn months. I can’t wait for Christmas when we can explore with scents like peppermint, gingerbread and Christmas pud!! If you have older children (who won’t eat the play dough) you could even try adding a bit of glitter to your dough’s.
Once you are done playing, don’t forget to pop the dough’s in a zip lock bag, and then into a air tight container to keep it from drying out.
Have you tried this recipe? I’d love to hear how you got on!!
Why have I never thought of making this from home before?! I’m an adult who would literally love to do this :’) I love that you allowed her to pick what colour she wanted, that might seem first nature to you, but as someone who has never been a mother, that’s a lesson in and of itself! Loved this post x