Easy Homemade Play Dough – DIY

The kids and I had a lot of fun making easy homemade play dough the other day as part of our homeschool / homework science project.  I used a standard recipe that I did not invent, but I wanted to share how easy it was and how much fun it made this learning experience for our kids.  This is the same recipe I used nearly a decade ago when we made homemade play dough for our church nursery and it is a fun activity for our big kids to do now.  It always surprises me how many people say “I had no idea you could make that so easily!”  It is fun for them to make and then fun to play with afterwards.  The ingredients are inexpensive and the process is very simple.  This is a great homeschool activity, Summer/Spring/Winter break activity, and also a really fun rainy/snowy day activity – make sure to pin it for future reference!

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 4 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 cups water
• 2 tbsp oil (we used canola oil)
• 1 package of flavored drink mix (this is totally optional – for color and scent – we used ‘pink lemonade’)

Tools

• Large pot or pan
• stove
• spatula / big spoon
• wax paper
• zip closure bag for storage
• apron (optional – haha)

OK – so it is pretty easy!  First, my kids put on aprons – mainly because aprons are fun.

It really doesn’t get that messy – but the kids know something fun is about to go down when we all put on an apron.

Put all the ingredients into the pan on the stove.  Heat the stove on low and simply stir ingredients together.  When your dough has the consistency of mashed potatoes you’ve got play dough!

While we make the dough we talk about how heat changes things.  We talk about how we can put all these ingredients in individually, but once they are dough, they can’t be turned into something else – they are all stuck together.  It is a simple but fun science lesson that blows their little minds the first time you make it.  Our kids are well aware of the process now, but they still love to make play dough – they love making it and will play with the dough for hours on end after!

Dough will stay fresh in an air tight plastic container or a zip closure bag. We typically only keep ours for a couple days – it’s still totally good, but I feel it is so cheap to make more and my assumption is it is uber germy after a couple days.