Super Soft No-Cook Play Dough

Play dough is one of my favourite kid's toys to play with. I love squishing it and making little sculptures with it, and then rolling it all back into a ball to play with again another day. The boy-o had never played with it before so I figured it was definitely time to make some for him to try out. I wasn't sure how well he would like the texture, but since we've been trying to focus on sensory activities the last little while, it seemed like a great time to test it out! Making your own play dough is also so simple and cost effective that once you try out this recipe you'll never bother buying it again!

The Cream of Tartar is the secret to making super soft play dough that will still that way for months.

No-Cook Play Dough Recipe:

Ingredients:

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 2 TBSP vegetable/olive oil

- 1/2 cup salt

- 2 TBSP cream of tartar

- Up to 1 1/2 cups of boiling water

- Food colouring

Directions:

1. Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil together in a large bowl.

2. If using food colouring, add desired amount to the boiling water.

3. Slowly add water into dry mixture and only add enough to combine all the dry ingredients together.

4. Allow play dough to cool down for a few minutes and then remove from the bowl and knead with hands several times until the dough becomes workable and the stickiness is gone. If dough is still too sticky add more flour.

5. When you're finished playing, you can store your play dough in a sealed container for up to 6 months. (6 months!)

As I predicted the boy-o was a little unsure about the texture of the playdough, and did his little dance routine where he sort of pokes at something new really quick and then hops around it, and then pokes at it again, and does some more hoping around. (It's pretty adorable and hilarious to watch...) But once he saw mama and daddy playing with it and we grabbed one of his hands and stuck it in the play dough he warmed up pretty quickly.

        

Once he got comfortable playing with it we brought one of his trucks into the mix. We drove the truck back and forth over the play dough looking at the tire tread marks that it made, as well as whether it rolled better on the play dough or on the floor. 

  

Then once he was comfortable playing with his truck in the play dough we added in some of the plastic play knives from his kitchen to cut the play dough with and carve pictures and letters into it. In total he sat and played with it for about 30 minutes, and if it wasn't dinner time I'm sure he would have happily sat and played even longer!

This play dough will keep for about 6 months in a sealed container though, so we'll have many more opportunities to play with it another day!