There are heaps of craft activities children can make with dough, and they can play with it for hours. Read here for playdough recipes and great project ideas.

Dough provides hours of making and modelling fun, and is especially good for young kids as it is softer than clay to poke and prod. Unfortunately the projects have a short life span, as the dough begins to dry out over a couple of days, but kids enjoy the process far more than the end product anyway.

You can purchase coloured dough in pots, or use our easy recipe to make your own. Store bought dough will last indefinitely if kept in their air tight containers, where as home made dough will start to go slimy after a couple of weeks. To lengthen its lifespan, keep it in an air tight container in the fridge.

Homemade Play Dough Recipe

You will need:

¼ cup Salt

3 tablespoons Oil

1 cup boiling water

2-3 cups flour

Food Colouring

To make:

1. Mix the salt and oil together. You will find that the salt soaks up most of the oil and becomes quite dry.

2. Pour in the boiling water and stir until the salt is dissolved.

3. Add a few drops of food colouring (or paint), and slowly add the flour, stirring as you go.

4. Keep adding flour until a soft dough forms. Finally tip the dough onto a bench, and knead it well before use.

For something special you can add glitter, food essence or scent to the water as well as colouring.

If you want your child’s model to last a bit longer, you can make cookable bread dough. It is soft and easy to mould, just like traditional dough, but you can cook the models in the oven to set them hard.

The projects don’t last forever, as eventually the dough becomes soft and mouldy, but it is a great dough to use for things like Christmas decorations or festive centrepieces. Either make different coloured batches as you would with traditional dough, or have your child paint their models once they are cooked. Either way it is important to finish the model with a coat of varnish, to help seal out the moisture.

To make a cookable dough, simply mix together 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and 1 – ½ cups of hot water. Once the project is made, bake the creation at 325*C until it is hard.

 

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Dough Project Ideas

Modelling projects are only limited by your imagination, and there are lots of things you’re child can make with dough. Here are some great ideas to get you started.

Cupcakes and Cookies

Playing with dough lends itself to playing make believe, and you will find that preschool children very quickly start to make and bake. Instead of simply making some dough cookies, then squashing them down, why not make a plate of elaborate cakes using cookable dough.

Your child can paint them up in bright colours, and then use the pieces over and over as they play picnics with their friends or dolls.

Birthday Cakes

It is fun to make giant birthday cakes using coloured dough and your child can really go over board with the decorations. Start by making a thick pancake with one colour dough, and then stack more and more on top to create coloured layers of cake. Your child can make long squiggly sausages which they then use like piped icing to decorate the cake.

If you like you could give them plastic figurines or letters to add to the decorations as well – and don’t forget the birthday candles!

Box Scenes

Cut the top and front out of an old cardboard box, and then paint it up to make a farmyard scene. Use dough to make lots of farmyard animals, and then pop them into place.

You could use the same idea to make all sorts of scenes – craters of the moon, bugs in the grass, or even the jungle. There is an awesome example of a volcano and dinosaur scene in our Arts and Crafts Community Board.

Dough Fossils

Gather together a pile of natural treasures like shells, twigs and leaves, and have your child make dough fossils. Simply roll the dough into a ball and then squash it flat with your hand. Press in your treasure, and carefully remove it to leave an imprint.

It is sometimes tricky to pull out the item without destroying the rest of the dough, so try tipping the whole piece upside down, and gently peeling the dough off the back.

Dough Blocks

Turn dough into a building material by showing your child how to make blocks which stack on top of each other. Add toothpicks, skewers and ice block sticks and let your child use their imagination. It’s amazing what types of buildings and construction they will create.

Flower Pots

Squash play dough into a plastic flower pot to form a base for a paper garden. Have your kids poke in drinking straws to form the flower stalks, and then attach paper flowers to the top.

Christmas Decorations

Your child can make great Christmas decorations out of cookable dough. Simply roll out the dough to about 5mm thick, and then use cookie cutters to cut it into Christmas themed shapes. Poke a hole at the top of the piece using a pencil, and then bake.

Once the decorations are hard and cold, your child can paint each piece, and even add some glitter for a real Christmas effect. Thread coloured ribbon through the hole, and hang them on the tree.