Playdough in Homeschool

Nathan Making a Yellow Dog with Play Dough

Playdough in Homeschool

Play dough is an art medium for homeschool with multiple uses.  I always kept a supply of play dough for my preschooler’s “school” acitivity time.  Making things with play dough was an activity that was often on their school time list. It would keep my 4 year old occupied for a while while I worked one on one with my older children who needed help with reading or math.

I often made playdough with items I already had available in the kitchen. I stored it in a freezer bag and placed that bag in a plastic container with a lid. The container also stored cookie cutters, a child’s rolling pin, plastic knives, and other home tools for playing with play dough.

Keep some plastic placemats to lay down for a playdough work surface on the table. There are wonderful learning placemats available at Walmart and other stores that feature world map, US map, the presidents, fractions, and many other facts that children will pick up over time, just by having the information on the placemat and talking about it with them from time to time.

You can color your homemade playdough with food coloring, but many children will prefer the uncolored since it looks more like real cookie dough.

Our playdough kit was put up and we only brought it out once every couple of weeks. By making play items available only at certain times, makes the children more excited about them.

When the playdough started to get old and dry, we would just whip up a batch of new dough!

Here is one recipe for it:

Playdough Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 2 ½ cups flour
  • ½ cups salt
  • 1 tablespoon alum
  • 3 tablespoon cooking oil
  • 1 ½ cups hot water
  • food coloring

Combine oil, water, and food coloring. Combine dry ingredients and mix thoroughly and knead.

homeschoolplaydough

Lane Concentrating on His Creation