Homemade Play Dough Recipe

Play dough is one of those items that can spark creativity in young minds.

Sometime play dough dries up, or the colors get mixed together. While play dough is pretty inexpensive, it is still cheaper, and more fun, to make your own.

You can easily create homemade Play-dough with kitchen ingredients you probably have already.

Parents need to do the cooking parts of this homemade Play dough recipe, but kids can help with measuring, mixing and coloring, and of course, playing with the play dough.

Materials for the Homemade Play Dough Recipe

empty and clean yogurt cups with covers
1 tbspn of inexpensive cooking oil, like corn oil or canola oil
1 cup of white flour
1 cup of tap water
3 tspns of Cream of tartar
1 package of powdered drink mix, like a generic version of Kool-Aid; make sure its unsweetened; this is for color
1/2 teaspoon of salt

tbspn = tablespoon
tspn = teaspoon

Equipment for this Homemade Play Dough Recipe

1 handled cooking pan
1 wooden spoon
1 pot holder
1 wooden cutting board
wax paper
1 parent

Preparation for Homemade Play Dough

Kids can help prepare this recipe.

Let Kids Help: Cover the counter top or table top with recycled newspaper or recycled magazine page. Place the wooden cutting board on the protective papers. You will later use the cutting board to spread out and form the dough.

Take out the plastic containers, and make sure they each have a lid. Otherwise, the homemade Play-Dough will not last very long.

Kids can also all of the other needed ingredients and the Play Dough making equipment.

Measuring and Math Skills in the Recipe

Encourage children to learn math, especially those sometimes challenging fractions, by teaching them how to measure ingredients for this homemade recipe. Have kids pre-measure the salt, the flour, oil, water, and Cream of Tartar.

Next, kids can mix the salt, the flour, the Cream of Tartar, and the powdered drink mix in a pan, with a spoon, away from the stove. Then add the water and the water and the oil

Now, a parent can take over, and slowly heat the Play Dough ingredients on the stove.