DIY: How to Make Playdough at Home
It takes less than 5 minutes …
Playdough is a popular form of sensory play, with its soft and tactile nature giving children the opportunity to create anything they’d like!
There are many benefits of children playing with playdough, including developing fine motor skills, creativity, and vocabulary.
Playdough also:
- Improves eye-hand coordination
2. Builds children’s imagination and executive functions as they play with it
3. Develops self-esteem as the child feels a sense of ownership by expressing his or her ideas
4. Is a calming process that helps children relieve stress through their hands
Playdough is extremely easy and fun to make at home. Below is a fool-proof recipe and method of making playdough, which assures that it will last for weeks.
Happy making and playing!
Materials Required to Make Playdough:
All-Purpose Flour or Maida 1 cup
Salt ¼ cup
Lemon juice of one and a half lemons
Food colour of your child’s choice
Oil 2 tbsp
Warm water ½ cup
2 bowls
Method:
In a bowl, mix the flour and salt.
Consecutively, mix lemon juice, oil, and food colour in another bowl.
Mix the ingredients in both the bowls and make a dough by gradually adding water.
You can adjust the consistency of the dough by adding more water or flour.
If the dough is still stiff, you can smoothen it by rubbing oil.
Store the playdough in zip lock bags or plastic wrap at room temperature and doesn’t need to be refrigerated.
If hardens you can knead it with little water and oil.
Below are photographs of children at Learning Matters engaging with playdough. It’s a great idea to add other natural loose parts (open-ended material) with the playdough for the children to create with, such as flower petals, fairy stones and maida, further fueling their creativity and thinking!
Keep an eye out for our DIY recipes on making slime at home for children to play with!
[Learning Matters educator Mekha Sujit contributed to this article.]
