Guest Post and Playdough Recipe By Lisa Bradburn
As a mum to three wonderful children and a primary school teacher turned toy-hunter*, Playdough has long been a part of my life.
*Yes, I really am a toy-hunter. I hunt down unique and unusual gifts for children!
From shop-bought ‘Play-Doh’ to hard-as-nails plasticine, mouldable dough has long been in my educational tool kit.
It never ceases to amaze me how simple, everyday items can entertain children. And as a mum, there’s nothing more satisfying than an affordable, do-it-yourself solution that educates and entertains.
I have perfected a fail-proof Playdough recipe. It makes enough to half-fill a family-sized ice cream tub and it is:
- Good for three months (keep it in an air tight container in the fridge)
- Soft and squidgy – you don’t need to warm it up in your hands before your kids can play with it
- Easy to get off the carpet (because it’s the perfect consistency)
- Full of salt so your kids won’t want to it eat!
You can find a link to this playdough recipe at the end of this article. But before that, let me share with you some marvellous ways to take Playdough beyond the ordinary.
- Add colour
Otherwise it’s creamy-white and very uninspiring. Add colour to help your children learn their colours and how, for example, blue and yellow mix to make green. Perhaps split your Playdough mixture into three and colour them red, blue and yellow – the primary colours – from which you can create all the colours of the rainbow. Try adding glow in the dark paint, too!
- Add scent
Add scents to your Playdough like lemon juice, peppermint or coffee. Pungent smells that associate colours with objects add another dimension to play. Scent sparks another sense and inspires games of make belief. Baking and kitchen games for example, become more ‘real’ when you’re cutting slices of yellow Playdough that actually smell like lemon!
- Add sparkles
If you use the really fine glitter, the results are mesmerizing. This is always a favourite at Christmas but it is fun any time of the year. Just like the scent, sparkles add another dimension to play and imagination. Try adding silver, purple and blue glitter to black Playdough to create a galaxy!
- Bake it!
Did you know you can bake Playdough? In my classroom days, we would roll the Playdough into biscuits and all sorts of other pretend baked goods. Rolling out is hard – kids really struggle with it. Practicing with Playdough means if it’s not right, you can simply ball it up and start again.
I’d bake the biscuits at home, over night, and the next day the children would have ‘real’ biscuits to use in the home corner.
Of course, you can do this with real food dough, but with Playdough you don’t have to worry about hygiene or health and safety – it’s never going to be eaten!
- Teaching with Playdough
Count, add up and subtract pretend biscuits for a group of friends, make letters and spell out words, teach ‘thin’ and ‘thick’, teach shapes and animals. There are endless ideas and endless possibilities with Playdough.
You can find my fail-proof Playdough recipe here.
How do you use Playdough to teach and entertain your kids? What do you add to it do make it extra special? Let me know in the comments.
About the author: Lisa Bradburn is the managing director of what2buy4kids – a place to find quality, unusual gifts for kids. Lisa built her business out of first-hand frustration at the lack of interesting and available gift ideas for children. Now, she hunts them down so you don’t have to and provides endless entertainment inspiration for children of all ages.
*Ad guest post contribution. Image credit “idea” – Posterize – “Playdough Swirl” – nattavut – both freedigitalphotos.net .
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
Love this…particularly the idea of adding scents like lemon. My 3 love playing shops and cafes and would love it even more if they had different scented dough to play with. Great idea to bake it to make the play biscuits too.
I’ve always hated how play dough smells – why have a never added scent to it. Dohhh !
I have been making playdough recently and have been trying to make it smell nicer, i will have to try with lemon! x
I’ve never thought to ‘make’ playdough. What a great post! x
I used to love playdough when I was small, now my brother loves it. It’s so much fun!
Max adores playing with playdough, but I rarely make it. It is normally shop bought. Thank you for sharing this post.
Lots of great ideas x
I love the idea of adding different scents to the playdough! It adds a whole new level of fun 🙂
im definitely planning to use play dough when my little one is old enough, thanks for a post
I’m weird, I love the smell of playdoh! Will have to give this homemade recipe a go when my niece is a little bit older! x
My kids used to love play dough when they were kids. You have brought back memories
I do love playdough and still have never made any – I really must just for the smell
Oooh – playdough with glitter! Why did I never think of that?
I so need to make my own playdough for my children. Never even thought about adding glitter and scent. Thank you.
my girls love playing with playdough! we make is seasonal with glitter/colours/scents that match the time of year 🙂
We go through a lot of playdough, off to have a look at the recipe!
Great ideas, love the thought of coffee play dough and play dough cookies!
Thank you for the play dough recipe.
Another few months and we will give this one a go.
Going to make glittery play dough!
Glittery playdough is fab to make for bonfire night. I usually colour it black and then add lots of different colours of glitter so it looks like fireworks in the night sky!!!
My kids love playdough, I don’t have to do anything to it as they just use their imagination!
We love playdough but never thought of baking it, what a good idea!
What a fab idea, and so much cheaper than buying! Will be trying this one 🙂 x
Oh this looks like fun!! My girls are going to love these ideas!
ooohhh dough is really fun! adding sparkles??? More fun! Thanks for the tips =) #letkidsbekids
We rolled rosemary and lavender into ours – just for something different.
Lavender and rosemary are great shouts. Thanks for sharing. I’ve also added a few drops of pot pouri oil, which works really well too.
This is a great post! Some brilliant ideas x
OOh great post, my little one loves play-doh but always mixes the colours so it’s great to have a recipe to make some more! x
Love this, I never know what to do with play doh (appart from make Batman, apparently…) Pinned it x
Great ideas to add some scent and sparkle.
Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids
I have never tried to make play dough – the kids love playing with it though
Great post! I love the ideas, especially adding scents and sparkles. My son would love to try this! We have attempted to make playdough in the past, but it just didn’t turn out as I had planned. *epic fail* But I’m definitely going to be trying this out, and including some of your great ideas.
Thanks so much for sharing on Turn It Up Tuesday! We love having you! 🙂
The recipe is really easy, so please give it a try. Let me know how you get on. I’m sure it will be a huge success.
Some great tips! I always struggle a bit with what to do once we have got the play dough out. I love your photography too – really creative and inventive. How did you manage to get such white backgrounds? I’ve visited via the #Pinitparty
I didn’t know you could bake it! Thanks for sharing at the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop!
We love playdough! #parentingpinitparty
I love homemade play doh but I had no idea it could be baked!
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
I haven’t tried making homemade play dough before so will have to give it a go. There are some really good ideas about what to do with it too – it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to add scents or to bake it.
I love play doh and your fun ideas for play!
I would be honored to have you hop over and share with us at Tell Me About It Tuesday! (http://www.sweetsillysara.com/2014/04/tell-me-about-it-tuesday_28.html)
Thanks so much for linking up these fun ideas with us at The Thoughtful Spot!
Pinned this on my boards for The Sensory Spectrum. Thanks for sharing on the Kids Co-Op.
We love to make play dough, but my daughter likes the process more than playing most of the time. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!
Never seen the scented play dough before! That’s a good one.
You can bake it? Whaaat?! How did I not know this?
Every day is a school day. Great ideas, thanks for sharing! #Pintorials
This is a fantastic idea thank you for sharing #pintorials x
My homemade playdough never seems to turn out right! Will have to give this recipe a try!
GREAT ideas here!! Love the idea of working the dough into food items!