When it comes to kids, they simply know how to have fun. Well, the tricky part of this “fun” is often a heavy toll on you. Then feelings like compassion and forgiveness start to evaporate from the top of your head and you have a hard time swallowing your anger. The only expression that comes out of your mouth is “Sweety, what have you done!”. Well, mishaps are most likely to happen when you decide they should play indoors, maybe due to heavy rains. Instead of constantly monitoring what they do, there is an easy way. How about playdoughs? Kids love those soft squishy colourful things, but do you know how to make playdough? If you don’t, you have come to the right blog! Let’s learn an easy homemade playdough recipe today, shall we?
Why learn how to make homemade playdough?
The biggest problem with the commercially available playdoughs is their obscure ingredient list and your kid might have the habit of “tasting” his/her toys. In that case, you would typically not want them to taste those things, especially, when you don’t know exactly what it contains! Another problem is the cost and there are various brands available in the market. You might be caught up among the various options and might eventually decide to buy the pricey one. Then again you doubt if they are honest about the ingredient list. Instead of crossing your fingers and buying a product, it is always better to make it yourself. In fact, you can have more playdough at the same price when you decide to go domestic!
Ingredients for the Perfect Homemade Playdough Recipe
Want to know an easy way to make homemade playdough? Make sure you have all of these:
- Flour (At least two cups)
- Any oil (coconut oil, vegetable oil and olive oil and just make sure you have two tablespoons to spare)
- Salt (half cup)
- Boiling water (one and a half cups)
- Food grade colour
- Cream of Tartar (2 tablespoons) or lemon juice (2 tablespoons)
So, how to make playdough?
Wondering about all you would do with these ingredients? Let’s learn the perfect homemade playdough recipe:
- You can start by pouring two cups of flour into a large bowl.
- Then add half a cup of salt to it and then add two tablespoons of the cream of Tartar.
- After that, add two tablespoons of oil to it. You can use any edible oil, so there won’t be any harm if your kid takes a bite or two. Hopefully, he/she won’t like the taste but if he/she does we absolutely discourage making it his/her stable diet considering the high levels of sodium chloride already added to it.
- Then carefully pour boiling water, one and a half cups, and do the final mixing of all the contents.
- Keep mixing it until it forms the dough. However, be careful now as the dough is hot! After mixing it you should wait for it to cool down.
- Now is the time to add the food-grade colours to the dough. What you do is first separate the dough into equal parts and remember not to make it too small.
- Once you have the balls, punch a hole in each of them by pressing a finger against them such that the ball now turns into bowl-shaped structures. On these bowls, you will have to pour your colours. You can also mix colours to have different colours.
- Once you are done adding the colours you should start kneading the dough until the colours are thoroughly mixed. Ensure that the colour goes uniformly at all parts of the dough and this could be done only with patient mixing.
- You can also add some smell to the dough by adding some kind of fragrant extracts or essential oil. But beware that what smells good seems tasty!
But, hey what about lemon juice?!
Loud and clear, we have written about lemon juice in the ingredient section. If you were thinking about it, jinx, we got you there! Well, you see that the Cream of tartar might not be an easy ingredient and you might have to order online. However, there are substitutes available in every local market in India. This could be lemon but it is not the only one! You can also add Baking powder but then you will need to add three tablespoons of it or you can also go for vinegar but then all of your dough would have a pungent odour which might not feel very good.
Tips on Storing Homemade Playdough
You should make sure that the container where you store the playdough must be airtight. But even after that, it could start having a sour smell in two months. A way out could be adding oil or some scent extract and making sure that your kids don’t put it in their mouths. A common problem that could be encountered is the drying out of the playdough but don’t worry. You can rub the dough with a wet towel or put it in running water if it is too dry and then proceed to knead it again and restore it in the airtight container overnight. The playdoughs are again ready to be played with.
Homemade playdoughs are a good solution if you want to keep your kids away from painting murals on the walls, cutting your hair while you sleep to play “Barber-Barber” or using your makeup and pretending to look like mommy and ending up looking like ghosts! Well, some like the graffiti on the walls can happen anytime while others could be avoided. Especially on a rainy day. But playing with playdoughs has more to it. It also stimulates the imagination of your kids as they try to build up new things. This is very important for the holistic development of your toddlers. Speaking of “holistic developments”, have you heard about Kangaroo Kids International Preschool? There they offer various curricula that are useful for the overall development of your kids. Contact them today to learn more about them.
