Like most preschool teachers, I have tried a hundred different play dough recipes! Store-bought play dough is expensive, especially for the number of children who play with it, and I don’t love the smell or texture. So, even in my early days as an undergraduate education student I always experimented with homemade play dough.
I make a new batch of play dough for my classroom every month. Sometimes we add kool-aid, cocoa powder, essential oils, or pumpkin pie spices! It’s fun to just make a plain batch, though. That’s what we have for March– 6 colors of the world’s best play dough!
Don’t you just want to touch it! I love this play dough because it is so soft (and easy for little hands), it lasts for ever, and the texture is not sticky or crumbly. Now, there are 2 “cons” to this playdough: it has to be cooked on the stove and it requires cream of tartar. The cooking part is quick, and I buy big containers of the tartar in the Target brand. When I want to make play dough with the kids, I try a no-cook version, but this one is still our very favorite!
The students loved the assortment of colors at this invitation to play.
This is a little “sun” flower. 🙂
And this, of course, is a unicorn.
We have heart cookie cutters in a number of sizes. This student make a cut-out heart and filled it with another color. How smart!
So, here it is. Our #1 favorite, best play dough in the world recipe!
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I use this recipe with my class. We use an electric skillet. They measure all of the ingredients, and then I turn it on and stir with the kids at a safe distance. I also get cream or tarter in bulk from a nearby Mennonite community.
That's a great idea! I need to check on other sources for bulk cream of tartar. Thanks for the tip!