When my kids were little, I was always making homemade play dough so that we would have some on hand. We could explore and create for hours with this modeling substance. We would roll it out, use cookie cutters, shape it into animals from our stories, and create landscapes.
I recently came across a new recipe for making homemade play dough that is luxuriously soft! Making this modeling material is a fun activity for all ages. Children can model with this dough while you share a story. It’s also great for little hands to keep them occupied while you do lessons with older children. And we even made some for the teens and adults in our house to play with! Just looking for a little winter fun.
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, wrote that modeling has a vitalizing effect on us and trains observation and awareness. You can read more in my article The Seven Lively Arts.
Here is a super simple recipe for play dough with just three ingredients – corn starch, hand lotion and food coloring. I used lavender-scented lotion and it smells lovely!
1. Measure out the corn starch. I used 2 cups.
2. Add lotion. I started with 2/3 of a cup (a 3 to 1 ratio of corn starch to lotion), but it was too crumbly, so I added more. (Ended up with more like a 2 to 1 ratio of corn starch to lotion).
3. Add food coloring. This is really fun to do, first in a bowl and then knead on the counter. The food coloring will stain your hands at first, but it wears off very quickly (like same day).
After your modeling fun, store this dough in plastic bags or a plastic container. 
Here’s a Homemade Playdough Recipe.
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