We first made our crayon play dough recipe to go along with a book activity that called for purple play dough. But when the kids started playing with this dough every single day? I loved it for the fine motor benefits. My kids just thought it was cool to make play dough from old crayons. I knew we had to make a few other colors.
How to make Crayon Play Dough:
crayons
vegetable oil
flour
salt
cream of tartar
water
Now, when we made play dough in a rainbow of colors, things were moving very quickly over the stove. I didn’t get a chance to take many action shots. With the heat of the stove, hot oil, and chopping up the crayon bits, this is a job for the mamas or papas rather than helpful kids. Older children certainly could do this recipe. I wasn’t able to take pictures while making our dough. 🙁
You can see how the crayons were chopped in our Harold and the Purple Crayon post that inspired more colors of play dough. Start by chopping up your crayons into pieces. This is where your broken crayons will come in handy. We used a variety of brands of crayons mixed together and it didn’t seem to alter the texture of the dough.
Use Broken Crayons to Make Crayon Dyed Play Dough:
You’ll need the following ingredients:
2 Tbsp oil
2 and half broken crayons (each color)
2 cups water
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cup salt
2 Tbsp. cream of tartar
I halved these ingredients to make each shade. If you read our Harold and the Purple Crayon post, you saw that we used 2 and a half chopped up crayons for the full recipe as well. When I halved the ingredients, I kept the amount of crayons and we got bright, bold colors for our dough. Perfect for playing!
First, chop up 2 and a half crayons.
To make all of the colors of dough, I had to hustle a little; I made one color, plopped it onto a cutting board, let it cool while starting the next batch. When the first color was cool enough to touch for kneading, I took a little break from the stove mixing and crayon chopping. It got a little hectic in the kitchen, and you may want to completely mix up one color at a time. For your own sanity 😉
Note: If you have an old pan, use that to melt the crayons down. I was able to get any waxy residue out of my pan with soaking and boiling dish detergent on the stove, though.
A few more play dough recipes that look like a fun way to celebrate National Play Dough Day:
- Edible Pumpkin Pie Play Dough can be used in the fall months for a themed play dough activity for kids.
- Fall Play Dough Fun is another fall-themed sensory play activity that the kids will love.
- Fine Motor Play Dough Activities outlines a few play dough activities that add a fine motor component.
- Beach Themed Microwave Play Dough can be added to a beach learning activity with kids, or used in summertime play for a fun beach themed activity.
- Gingerbread Play Dough and this Gingerbread Play Dough is great for the holidays.
- Fall Play Dough Mats can be used to work on fine motor strength and endurance.
- No Cook Natural Cinnamon Play Dough is a recipe that works for older kids. Use it as an executive functioning activity too.
Favorite Play Dough recipes and activities for kids:
This play dough mat is available for FREE only for our Play Dough is Awesome newsletter group. (This is a different email list than our regular subscribers. If you’re on our subscriber list, you’ll still need to sign up for this one to receive the play dough freebies coming your way!)
