20 Play Dough Recipes and Ideas

Play dough is so fun for kids. Most often we make it ourselves. We enjoy experimenting and creating new recipes. Some of the recipes fail, but the process is still enjoyable. And some of the recipes are successful and inspire lots of pretend play. Check out these 20 successful play dough recipes and ideas for using them.

Taste Safe Play Dough Recipes

These recipes are made with food ingredients only. They don’t necessarily taste good. You should not encourage your kids to eat these doughs, but if your children like to put everything in their mouths, these doughs are the safest. You should cook your flour before using it just to be on the safe side.

Oatmeal Play Dough – made with oatmeal, flour, and water.

Mash Potato Play Dough – just two ingredients: mash potatoes and flour.

Sweet Potato Play Dough – made with sweet potatoes and corn starch

Cocoa Cloud Dough (taste safe if you make it with an edible oil like vegetable oil or peanut oil and cook your flour)

Valentine’s Day Edible Play Dough – a valentine twist on our taste safe oatmeal play dough

Cornstarch Play Dough Recipes

Cornstarch and Glue Play Dough – one my favorite play doughs – it’s soft and stretchy!

Cornstarch and Jello Play Dough – the jello makes this dough smell so good.

Gluten Free Play Dough with Natural Dyes – made with masa flour and cornstarch.

White Clay with Baking Soda and Cornstarch – this is the perfect white clay for creating ornaments or other clay creations.

Fizzy Coconut Lime Play Dough – a lovely sensory experience! This dough is super soft because of the combination of cornstarch and coconut conditioner. The smell is amazing. The addition of baking soda to the dough makes it fizz when you add vinegar.

Fizzy Valentine Play Dough – another soft and squishy dough that fizzes and bubbles when you add vinegar. This one has the lime replaced with liquid water colors for a valentine theme.

Play Ideas

Learn about mixtures and create your own play dough.

Take the baking soda clay and use it to make a fizzy snowman.

Use your favorite play dough in a Lorax inspired truffula tree math game.

Make green play dough for Green Eggs and Ham pretend play.

Make a baking soda and vinegar volcano with play dough or use play dough to build a pop rocks volcano.

Be inspired by Big Hero 6 and Honey Lemon’s chemistry concoctions. Make play dough into cushioning foam.

Create Rainbow Fish from play dough. Play dough scales and sparkly gems add to the delight.

Try a play dough apple stacking activity. Compare different sizes and see which ones stack best.

Use play dough in a STEAM building challenge inspired by the Gruffalo. Can you build a log pile house for a snake?

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