Playdough at home not only shows children that we can make things just as nice as the colourful packaged items for 5 times the price in the shops, it is also a fabulous activity for pre /early writers or children with weak motor control! Distracted by all the fun, they won’t realise they are doing a physical workout!

What we used for each colour:

1/2 cup water
choice of food colouring (1 tsp)
2 tsp cooking oil
1 &  1/2  cups of flour
1/4 cup salt

How we made our play-dough

Firstly we put the water into a bowl and MT added the food colouring.

Next she added the cooking oil (we used vegetable).
Needless to say MT was fascinated by the bubbles…. science lesson too 🙂

Following this, MT spooned in the flour and salt which we had previously mixed together.

MT then mixed it all together, emptied it onto our mat (with my help), kneaded it and molded it into a ball.

We made red and green today and we will make blue and yellow tomorrow.

I think I’m converted.
Why would I buy it when I can make it so easily at home and have so much fun while doing so?.

This activity is a very good one for developing fine motor skills. Children who are young and are initially building these muscles or older children who have weak muscles will benefit from this. The kneading process requires lots of strength and uses all the muscles in the hands and fingers. Children who have very big handwriting or who have difficulty in drawing shapes by the age of 6 will benefit from making and playing with play-dough regularly. As I mentioned above, this is also a little introductory to science. It’s a nice idea to spend a moment looking at the oil in the water.