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Homeamade Play-doh is a lot of fun to make and a great learning experience for preschoolers and toddlers. There are many recipes for making homemade play-doh, but many of them involved cooking the dough in a saucepan. Since the kids will be involved in making the play-doh, I will provide 2 different recipes that do not involve making play-doh using hot material or the stove.

Homemade Play-doh Recipe #1:

1 cup cold water
1 cup salt
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Food coloring

In a large bowl, mix together water, salt, oil and a few drops of food coloring. Mix flour and cornstarch and add 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly (you may need a little more or a little less than 2 cups flour so make sure you stir in until it is the right consistency). Knead for a few minutes with flour on your hands. Found at: Easy Kids Recipes

Homemade Play-doh Recipe #2:

* 2 cups flour
* 1 cup water

Mix together well. You can put dry Kool-Aid or Jell-O in the mix if you want colored dough.
Found at: Teachnet

Once you have made the play-doh, you are ready for some fun preschool activities. First, the homemade play-doh can be used to help teach children about colors. Ask the children to identify the colors of the play-doh by pointing to them and naming them. Then, ask the child to find a particular color and hand it to you or say, “Roll the red play-doh into a ball.” You can also help the child roll several balls of each color. Then, ask the child to sort the balls into piles of each color.

The play-doh can also be used for some math activities and shape identification. Get out some cookie cutters and help the child cut out different shapes, then identify the shapes you have cut out. Develop the shapes into real world examples to show how shapes are found everywhere. For example, cut out a triangle, then add other pieces of play-doh to change the simple triangle into a pizza. Or, using a circle shape, add eyes, nose, and mouth to make it into a face. You can do a lot of different counting activities by counting all the different shapes or place a line of rolled play-doh balls in front of the child and asking him to count the number of play-doh balls.

Homemade play-doh can also be used to teach children about opposites and making comparisons. Place a large shape next to a small shape and explain how the opposite of large is small. Or, place 3 shapes in front of the child, a small one, medium one, and large one, then ask the child which is the smallest or which is the largest. You can repeat the same activity with other opposites and comparisons such as up v. down, long v. short, straight v. curvy and so forth.

However, the most important part of playing with homemade play-doh is to have FUN, FUN, FUN!

For more preschool activities and ideas, visit A to Z Childcare Directory.

Tags | homemade play-doh, homemade play-doh recipe, preschool play-doh activities