Make Natural Playdoh With Honey And Household Ingredients

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Using honey as a sensory ingredient, this wonderfully sensational playdough recipe is nothing short of amazing. My kids absolutely love playing with it so if you want a tactile way to inspire your children to learn about science with a sensory element this should do the trick. This homemade playdough will keep for about three days in a sealed container.

If your child is prone to putting things in their mouth, this is the perfect play dough recipe for you.

WARNING: If your child is under one year old, DO NOT use honey. Read more on Infant Botulism Here. Exclude or substitute for another scent.

Ingredients:

5 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup salt

3 tablespoons cream of tartar

2 cups of boiling water

1 tablespoon oil (we used vegetable)

4 tablespoons honey

Directions:

Combine All Dry ingredients in a bowl

Add honey to boiling water (my electric kettle is my best friend) and stir until completely dissolved.

Pour liquid into dry ingredients and stir until thoroughly mixed. It will take a while, and it will stick to your fingers, and you will feel hopeless for just a moment.

Just keep mixing. Eventually, it will stop sticking to your fingers and reach a doughy consistency.

Notes:

-I ran out of cream of tartar and only used about 3ish tablespoons. It would have been a softer consistency had I had the correct amount. So note that when viewing photos.

-The honey smell was strong when mixing into the water, but I did not add enough to be strong enough to overpower the scent of the dry ingredients in the dough. I did use local honey, which isn't as strong smelling as most grocery store honey. Next time I'll use smellier honey and save the good stuff for my tea.

My class loves playdough, and I knew this could keep them busy for quite a while, so I thought that a great way to work on number recognition without forcing a structured activity would be to incorporate these Honey Bear Number Cards from Habor + Sprout's new STEM Bundle! - Free download here. I've been on a honey bear theme lately, so I thought these number cards would be a great addition to any math center! The simple honey bears and bees hive pattern are great for playdough or loose part play, and they can also be used in a sensory bin or as a matching game, or even as a file folder game. The possibilities are endless!

The kids loved this activity and didn't realize that they were learning simultaneously. They were excited to find each number (I laminated them for durability) and make the corresponding amount of playdough "honeycombs."

This is an excellent activity for your students to learn how to count, recognize numbers, and their quantities. But it's never too early to expose your toddler to numbers and letters in everyday play.