My daughter had a make-your-own play doh night at her preschool (YMCA, which has been really great so far!) and I thought it would be a fun activity for my little students right before winter break. We used the recipe that they used at my daughter’s school, because the dough came out really nice and soft! There are only three ingredients: regular flour, salt and alum (can be found in the spice section at your grocery store). Well, and water. and GLITTER!!! (If you want.) I also liked this recipe because you don’t need to boil water or bake anything. Easy-peesy.
I doubled the recipe and had the students mix it up in a bowl. A double of this recipe was enough for three kids to have a lump of dough. The first graders were able to mix it up themselves except for getting all of the flour off the bottom of the bowl at the very end.
After we made the dough, we added the best part: GLITTER! Because ART TEACHERS LOVE GLITTER. Lol.
This dough is just to play with and not to harden and keep forever.
I put the dough into plastic baggies for the kids to take home.
once a 9 weeks my students can earn a free day and the last free day of the year is always salt dough. I have never added the Alum though. Always just flour, salt, water, and food coloring. Its been a big hit. I make a different color dough for each day of the week so if someone forgets to take it at the end of class its easier to figure out where it goes.
However I made a huge mistake my first year teaching. I made it at home and just brought the finished dough to school without bringing any of the extra materials. It started raining and the humidity got the best of us the dough started to liquify and without any extra flour just stuck to everything!
Ugh! That sounds like a disaster. I’ve made similar mistakes 🙂 How fun. I haven’t tried the food coloring yet!