For many of us, playdough brings back nostalgic memories - remember the hours of fun we had as kids, shaping all the wonderfully different coloured dough into anything we can imagine? In this post, we will be teaching you how to make your very own playdough using simple ingredients in your home. Go through the steps with your child for more fun and family bonding time!
Playdough is good for training your child’s fine motor skills as he/she will work the fingers’ small muscles when molding the dough. In addition, children will get to nurture their creativity as they let their imagination run wild in creating anything they want with the dough.
Without further ado, here are the steps to making the playdough!
1. Add the following dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir:
8 tablespoons of plain flour (you can swop out 2 tablespoons for talcum powder!)
2 tablespoons of fine salt (use fine grain salt as it dissolves more quickly)
1 tablespoon of cream of tartar
2. Pour the following wet ingredients together into a measuring cup or a normal mug:
100ml of hot water (use boiling water to ensure the salt dissolves properly)
15ml or 1 tablespoon of baby oil (vegetable oil works too, but baby oil smells better!)
A few drops of food dye
(Optional) Essential oil for scent
3. Pour half of the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir with a spoon.
4. Progressively add the remaining wet mixture and stir to mix, until you see a dough forming.
5. Pause to mix with the spoon until ingredients are blended in and they clump together.
6. Knead! Do so with your hands to get the dough to the right consistency. Add more of the wet mixture
bit by bit as needed.
7. Optional - Add lots of glitter and knead it in.
8. Store it! Wrap in cling wrap then keep in an airtight container. If the playdough feels dry, add some water and knead it in to refresh it. As Singapore’s climate is quite humid, do look out for spots of mould forming on the playdough.
Besides saving money on playdough bought in shops, you can get your child to join you in making the dough and even introduce to him/her the various ingredients in the kitchen! You can also adjust the colour by using different colours of food dye. Try it out with your child today and share your creations with us on our social media platforms - we’d love to see them!