Sensory Activities Archives

Edible Play Dough Dairy Free Recipe

March 12, 2014 by Selena Robinson 11 Comments

My kids absolutely love sensory play and one of the best ways to have sensory fun is to make your own playdough! But if you want to take it to the absolute max, you make edible play dough. Just because you can. 🙂

Several people in our family are lactose-intolerant, so we generally follow a dairy free lifestyle. But when we started looking around for edible play dough recipes, a lot of them used butter. So we decided to make an edible play dough dairy free recipe!

The great thing is that the recipe is simple and delicious (even without dairy products), which means that even if you’re not following a dairy free lifestyle, your kids will still love it.

If you enjoy this activity, be sure to grab our free Beach Number Playdough Mats to use them with!

Dairy Free Edible Play Dough Recipe

We found a great allergy-free edible play dough recipe from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. The basic recipe uses several household food staples, including powdered sugar, but you can swap out any of them for allergen-free versions.

With 6 ingredients, this edible play dough dairy free recipe is a bit more involved than some of the others. This isn’t exactly a no-cook recipe, since you have to melt the vegan butter, but it still comes together quickly!

Powdered sugar and corn syrup go in the bowl first…

Followed by vegan butter, vanilla, and salt….

…and finally, food coloring!

The initial consistency of this dough was really greasy, kind of the like the cloud dough that went horribly wrong last month.

After a night in the refrigerator, though, it was much more pliable and easier to work with.

As you can see, Roo didn’t care either way. That boy is obsessed with play dough.

He played around with the texture a bit.

But when he found out that he could eat it, there was no stopping him! (A note: This stuff is basically frosting, so don’t let your kids go crazy with it or they’ll never go to sleep!)

See what I mean? 🙂 We had a “ball” working with this edible play dough!

Grab the full recipe below!

Edible Play Dough Dairy Free Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes

Total Time 8 hours 10 minutes

Servings 1 batch of dough

Ingredients

Adapted from AAAAI
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup vegan butter melted
Splash of vanilla
Sprinkle of salt
5 drops food coloring any color desired

Instructions

Combine the powdered sugar and corn syrup in a large mixing bowl. Stir well.
Pour in the vegan butter and mix. Add the vanilla, salt, and drops of food coloring and stir until color is even throughout the dough.
Refrigerate overnight before using.

If you enjoyed this post, see more of our homemade play dough fun below!

Plus, get more tips for sensory fun at home on my Sensory Play Pinterest board!

12 Months of Sensory Dough: Foam Dough

January 12, 2014 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Hey everyone! It’s time for our 12 Months of Sensory Dough linkup! Every month, I’m honored to co-host this linky with 11 other bloggers, including Dayna at Lemon Lime Adventures, Val & Alex at Glittering Muffins, Devany at Still Playing School, Sarah at Little Bins for Little Hands, Kimberly at Natural Beach Living, Melissa Ann at The Eyes of a Boy, Nicolette at Powerful Mothering, Amy at Wildflower Ramblings, Rachel at I Heart Crafty Things, Michelle at Delightful Learning, and Jennifer at The Life of Jennifer Dawn!

This month, we’re all focusing on foam dough. I got a great recipe for two-ingredient foam dough on Instructables and we decided to try it out with the kids. On Friday, we shared our unit study based on the movie “The Aristocats” and our foam dough activity was our own kid-friendly sensory version of Plaster of Paris. Without the actual work and serious mess, though. 🙂

As the recipe shows, this foam dough literally requires two ingredients: cornstarch and shaving cream. That’s it.

We poured the cornstarch onto the table – slowly. Don’t dump it all out at once, unless you like not being able to breathe…lol.

Then we added the shaving cream. You know, it’s not until you actually squeeze out an entire can of shaving cream at once that you realize just how much is in each can.

We went a little bit crazy with the shaving cream. 🙂

The interesting thing about making this dough is that when you first start to combine it, it looks like the cornstarch won’t stick to the shaving cream. We ended up using a rubber spatula to combine it. But the longer you work with it, the firmer it becomes.

Until, eventually, you have foam dough!

Interestingly, Jay decided to add a bit of water to his batch. At first, it got slippery, but as he worked it, it got firmer and firmer until it was almost solid like chalk. The kids did the same thing and thought it was very, very cool.

It seems like if you were to add enough water and form the dough into a shape, you could probably actually make a sculpture – like you could with real Plaster of Paris. Just don’t expect it to last as long…lol.

What I really liked about this recipe is that it’s fairly easy to clean. When we were done, we just took a wet cloth and wiped the table down. Easy peasy!

We’d love to see your foam dough experiments! Feel free to share your foam dough fun below!

Please read the following guidelines before linking up.

Share family-friendly posts related to the month’s theme. Feel free to link old or new posts that highlight your favorite recipes for sensory dough. Failures and unsuccessful attempts are welcome.
We ask that no posts are linked with copy/paste recipes from other sources. If you use a recipe from another source, please link back to the original recipe.

By linking up, you give permission to share your post and one photograph in future posts and through social media channels.

Visit 2-3 other posts that others have shared. Discover new ideas and meet new friends!

The linky will remain open for two weeks. On the 12th of each month, all co-hosts will post a new dough with their spin, highlighting at least one post from the month before and pin each post to the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Board.

If you would like to, please grab the 12 Months of Sensory Dough button for your blog. And be sure to stop by and visit our co-hosts to get their take on the featured dough for the month!

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DIY Beach Play Sand Sensory Activity for Kids

July 29, 2013 by Selena Robinson 9 Comments

We usually do a family vacation in the summer, but the funds were just not there for it this year. Boo.

So we had to find a way to bring the beach to us. And that’s how we ended up making this DIY beach play sand!

Our kids are huge sensory seekers, so this soft and moldable play sand was a wonderful sensory experience for them.

I will say that it can be rather…messy, so take my advice and lay a few towels down before you get started.

After that, it’s a snap to make and they’ll play with it for hours!

If your kids love this, try our fun Coffee Filter Beach Ball Craft or read some sandy stories with our list of Beach Books for Kids!

DIY Beach Play Sand Recipe

To make this beach play sand sensory activity, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

Whole wheat flour
Baby oil
Silicone baking molds
Large container for holding the “sand” (We just used our roasting pan.)

We started off by reading the classic book Curious George Goes to the Beach.

In the story, George explores the water, builds sandcastles, and (of course) makes a mess by being curious.

Then we looked at some pictures of professional sand castles. The things people can do with sand and spray bottles are just incredible.

C/O: Tim Jenkinson

C/O: Jeroen Kransen

Naturally, the kids wanted to play around with some sand of their own.

To make our own “sand”, we used a classic play sand recipe featuring one part baby oil to eight parts flour.

I decided to use whole wheat flour, since it looked more like authentic sand than white flour.

I had to work the baby oil in with my hands to get it to distribute evenly. It was actually quite therapeutic.

Then we dropped in some silicone baking cups and a few bento molds and the kids got to work!

I just stuck our “sand” in a roasting pan, but you could easily make this on the driveway or in a sandbox.

See how well it sticks together?

It works beautifully with baking molds, but if you have buckets or sandcastle molds, this would be fun to use with those as well.

The kids absolutely loved it! And it literally took five minutes. Beach fun without sand in your shorts!

Love this activity? Don’t miss these other fun summer ideas!

This post is part of the Summer Book and a Big Idea linkup from iHomeschool Network! Click on over to read more book-based learning ideas from my fellow bloggers!

Sensory Play with Magic Muck

February 18, 2013 by Selena Robinson 9 Comments

You ever have one of those days when the kids are just bouncing off the walls but it’s too cold to go outside and you’re too broke to go anywhere else? Yeah, that was us one day last week. Plus, Piglet was nursing constantly and I was just exhausted and desperate for something for the kids to do. As a last resort, I went rummaging through our homeschool closet for a quick activity that wouldn’t be too messy or expensive.

Then I remembered the book: The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions: More Than 65 Wacky, Wild & Crazy Concoctions.

I got this over a year ago, but I think we’d only made one thing from it before last week. (I’m really awful about that.) Anyway, I looked through it and ah-ha! Magic Muck sounded like a perfect time-filler, especially since our kids are extreme sensory seekers.

What is Magic Muck, you ask? It also goes by the name “Oobleck“, so you’ve probably heard of it before. It’s just cornstarch, water, and a bit of food coloring. But, the neat thing about it is that the mixture behaves differently, depending on how much pressure you apply. When you initially touch it in the bowl, it feels firm, but when you pick it up and squeeze it, it runs through your fingers like a liquid. Very cool.

We laid down some packing paper and stood at the table to feel it. Instead of giving each child his or her own bowl of it, I did a communal bowl to encourage everyone to stand still. I’m sure that if all the kids had a bowl, I would still be cleaning Muck off the walls a week later.

See how the texture looks firm in the bowl, but runny off of Tigger’s hand?

The funny thing about sensory play is that you never know how the kids will respond. Tigger and Pooh loved it. In fact, they’ve been asking to do it again every day since. Roo? Not so much. I brought him a bowl of water to rinse his hands in and he asked if he could just put his hands in that for play instead. Which he did happily for over 20 minutes.

To each his own…

Have you used sensory play with your kids? We’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments. Keep on learning!

Building Fine Motor Skills with Play Dough

January 21, 2013 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

In case you missed our previous post about my homeschooling resolve in 2013, one of the things I’m focusing on is being less “boring” around my kids. So, I’m trying to add in more art play since everyone loves art in our house.

Our boys, Roo especially, really need to work on fine motor skills. And I wanted to help him improve those skills without making it into a chore he’d hate.

To make the day less “school-y” and more fun, we decided to work on building fine motor skills with play dough! Talk about something that’s not a chore at all, right? 🙂

Image: nadezhda1906 / Dollar Photo Club

Building Fine Motor Skills with Play Dough

I’ve actually had these Play-Doh sets for a while but we haven’t played with them nearly enough over the years. One is the Barnyard Pals playset and the other is the Sweet Shoppe playset.

When we work with play dough, I like to have the kids use tools to shape it and manipulate it. That way, the kids can work on using their hands to grasp, pinch, and move small bits of dough. Fine motor skills ahoy!

As you can see, this is not an activity that requires any direction from me whatsoever. I just bring out the set and hand out the canisters and let them get to it. 🙂

Roo was content to sit and make Play-Doh ice cream all morning.

Pooh used multi-colored Play Doh to make some pretty colorful dreadlocks on a plastic pig.

As someone who has dreadlocks, I was only moderately offended.

Tigger made a blue mohawk on her purple rooster.

Pretty sharp, huh? I think I’m raising a house of future hairdressers.

Once we were finished, it was time to reinforce fine motor skills by….cleaning up! I’m only half kidding. Trying to get all those tiny bits of dough up is actually a pretty good skill builder. 🙂

How do you help your kids with building fine motor skills? Let us know in the comments!