Homeschooling Project Idea: How to Make Your Own Playdough

One of my kids’ favorite activities when we are homeschooling is forming shapes out of play dough. They have made dinosaurs, tanks, cars, and even a whole Red Alert war set-up out of their play dough – complete with tanks, towers, buildings and soldiers. Really, there are so many possibilities for creation and imagination when the kids have playdoughs in their hands.

But buying playdoughs in toy stores can also be expensive especially for my kids who like to build scenarios with them. I’m also wary about buying just any brand through online because I’m not sure about the dye used which could contain lead. For this playdough recipe, I use food color as dyeing agent and add essential oils so that when my kids play with them, they also enjoy the health benefits of the oils. I also like that they smell so good.

Making this playdough is really easy and the ingredients are quite easy to source. I have added cream of tartar into the mix per recommendation by a friend who is a pastry chef to make it more pliable. If you don’t have grapeseed or sweet almond oil, the one you have in the kitchen can work too, such as canola or olive oil.

Recipe:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup rock salt
1 T cream of tartar
1 T grapeseed oil or sweet almond oil
6-10 drops essential oil of your choice for scent (optional)
3/4 cup boiling water
Food color (optional)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a glass bowl. In a separate glass, mix the grapeseed oil and essential oils. Add the oil mixture into the dry ingredients and fold using the spatula. Add the food color in the boiling water and let it boil. Add 1/4 up of the coloured boiling water into the mixture and fold again. Slowly add the rest of the water into the mixture and continue folding. It is best to mix using your clean hands to asses the consistency. Based on my experience, the 3/4 cup water is good enough. 🙂

Let your kids play with it! I used Geneyus, a Young Living proprietary essential oil blend, for this playdough so they can happily play with it in their hands when they are studying while also enjoying the benefits of the essential oil blend.