Fizzy Coconut Lime Play Dough

We were inspired to make fizzy coconut lime play dough after reading My Five Senses by Aliki. This soft, squishy play dough fizzes and makes a soapy foam. Affiliate links are included in this post.

My Five Senses by Aliki

At first I thought My Five Senses was a book for babies. The first pages are very simplistic: “I can see! I see with my eyes.” Then, we continued to read. After introducing each of the senses, the author goes on to give specific examples of how we use each of our senses. Aliki also describes how we often use many senses at once. “When I bounce a ball, I use three senses…” A variety of ages would enjoy this book. Read just the beginning with younger children and use it as a great teaching opportunity for older kids.

Sensory play seemed like the perfect accompaniment to My Five Senses. Limes were on sale at the store, so we bought a whole bunch to make limeade and lime popsicles. I thought it would be fun to add the lime zest to some play dough. Plus I’ve been wanting to try a play dough with cornstarch and hair conditioner that I’ve seen done by so many. Cornstarch play doughs are always super soft, but the hair conditioner is supposed to make it extra soft. The limes made me think we needed to have a fizzy dough, so of course baking soda was added to our dough recipe. The result is really cool.

**This play dough contains ingredients that are not safe to eat. If you have a child that puts things in his/her mouth, you’ll want to skip this dough or change the ingredients.**

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup baking soda
4-5 tablespoons coconut hair conditioner
lime zest
vinegar {or lime juice}

How to Make the Play Dough:

Mix together the baking soda, cornstarch, and a tablespoon or two of lime zest. Add in the coconut hair conditioner a little at a time. Then, knead the dough together until it forms a nice play dough. If it’s too sticky, add a touch of cornstarch. If it’s too dry, add a tiny bit of conditioner. Knead again until it feels right. If it’s too dry, it’s still a pretty cool cloud dough. Crumbly and moldable. If it’s too wet, it’s really slimy. You decide what works best for you and your kids. The addition of the lime zest gives the yellow-green color. You could add food coloring or liquid watercolors to change the color.

How to Make the Play Dough Fizzy!

Because the dough has baking soda in it, it will reach with acids and create a lovely fizz {just like our Fizzy Melting Snowmen}.

Place your dough in large baking dish or similar container to contain the fizziness. We took our play outside because I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction we would get. With the addition of conditioner, I thought we might get some foam. (Adding soap to a baking soda and vinegar reaction creates a cool foam.)

I set up an invitation to play for Aiden. A starfish beach towel helped set the scene. I molded the coconut lime play dough into stars using cookie cutters.

I added lime zest to a container of vinegar. I wanted Aiden to work on the fine motor skills of squeezing a bottle and pinching so I placed the lime vinegar in an empty glue bottle and added a dropper to the table.

Aiden first used the dropper to add lime vinegar to a star. A little fizz.

Aiden dropped more lime vinegar on the stars. Fizz and foam. Fun!

He squeezed lime vinegar onto the stars with the glue bottle. Even more fizz and foam!

As he added vinegar, the foam rose.

The more vinegar, the higher the foam!

Talk about Your Senses and Play a Game

In the book My Five Senses by Aliki, the child in the story plays a game to guess how many senses he is using while doing different activities. You can play the game, too!

How many senses are you using while eating breakfast?

How many senses are you using while reading a story?

How many senses are you using while kicking a ball outside?

We talked about how many senses we used as we played with the fizzy coconut lime play dough. We used our sense of touch to mold the dough. We used our sense of smell to smell the scents of coconut and lime. We used our sense of sight to see the colors and shapes and the fizzy reaction. We used our sense of hearing to hear the fizzy reaction. We didn’t use our sense of taste because this dough was not meant to eat.

Here are 12 more play dough ideas to try!