Generations of kids have used playdough as a fun, educational material for creating art at home. As a versatile and reusable material, this soft modeling clay is the perfect art supply for various projects during a child’s middle school and elementary school years. But did you know that you can create your own playdough using items from the kitchen? Here’s a quick and easy recipe for your kids to follow.
Easy Playdough Recipe for Fun Art Projects
Collect your kitchen items and set aside around 10 minutes of preparation time.
- 2 cups of plain flour
- ½ cup of salt
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- 1 to 1 ½ cups of hot water
- 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar
Optional Ingredients
- Food coloring
- Glycerine
Food coloring is used to add bright color to the playdough, while using a small amount of glycerine helps to add some stretchiness.
Steps for Making Playdough at Home
- Mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar in a large bowl.
- Mix the water, oil and a few drops of food coloring in a separate bowl.
- Add this second bowl of colored water to the flour mix and stir.
- Add a few drops of glycerine if you choose.
- Take the dough from the bowl and knead it for a few minutes until the stickiness is gone.
- Store the playdough in an airtight container or bag.
The Best Playdough Art Projects for Kids
Kids love sculpting playdough into all kinds of shapes and designs. Reusability is one of this material’s advantages – the same playdough can be used over again to create new pieces of art. To introduce new colors, it’s better to make fresh playdough from scratch (over adding food coloring to an already-colored batch).
Make Impressions in Playdough
Roll out the playdough on a flat surface and encourage children to make impressions in the flattened material. You can collect items like old bottles, buttons, straws and plastic packaging and let children express their creativity.
Playdough Pizza Art
Create a pizza design with layers of different-shaped toppings. This project encourages children to think about shapes and dimensions.
Playdough Alphabet
Sculpt letters from playdough by hand or use a ruler, bottle or other household items. Older kids can spell out words using playdough of different colors. Combining creativity and literacy is a key reason why kids need art in their early education.
Playdough Cupcakes
Children can sculpt playdough cupcakes using liners, sprinkles and straws. This project uses hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills that help a child’s development.
Access More Free Art Lessons From Golden Road Arts
At Golden Road Arts, we create instructional art projects for children. To get the best playdough art and other fun guides, take a look at our free art lessons now. If you would like to support us further, please consider making a donation.
