How to Make Crayon Play Dough Recipe

Did you know that September 16th is National Play Dough day?  Me either, until a blogging buddy brought it up.  What a better day than to share our DIY Rainbow Crayon Play Dough recipe?  It’s one of our many crayon play dough recipes that we have here on the site. 


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.  
 
And that turned into every color of the rainbow. 
 
This Crayon play dough recipe is so easy, that you’ll want to make it in every shade, too.  Here is everything you need to know about How to Make Crayon Play Dough:
 
How to make crayon play dough using broken crayons.
 
 
This post contains affiliate links.
 

How to make Crayon Play Dough:

You will need just a few ingredients to make play dough using old crayons. The other ingredients are probably in your kitchen cupboards right now!

crayons, chopped into pieces.  We used 2 and a half of each crayon color.
vegetable oil 
flour 
salt 
cream of tartar
water

 
This DIY crayon play dough recipe is great for kids.
 
 

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.

How to make crayoon play dough. Use this crayon recipe as a sensory play activity
 
 
The kids had fun picking out the shades of the colors for our dough.  Baby Girl insisted on having pink.
 
Use broken crayons to make rainbow crayon play dough recipe.

 

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.  

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, salt, cream of tartar)
 
Next, heat the oil in a pan.  Add the chopped crayons.  Stir until the crayons are completely melted.  Slowly stir in 2 cups of water while stirring.  Certain types of crayons will either make a clumpy and gooey looking liquid.  Other types will make a smooth liquid once the water is added.  Either way is fine.  Just keep stirring. 
 
Slowly, stir in the dry ingredients.  The dough will pull together in a ball over the heat.  Once the dough pulls together, dump it out onto a cutting board or counter.  Let the dough cool until you can tolerate kneading.  Knead the dough for a few minutes until smooth.  
 
By the time we got to our last color, we ran out of cream of tartar.  I know that in certain areas of our readership, cream of tartar is unavailable.  Without the cream of tarter, the dough recipe still worked fine, just a little less smooth.  

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. 




 
 
This dough is such a soft dough but is it is still a great way to incorporate fine motor skills and strengthening in a vividly colorful way.  In fact, playing with crayon play dough would be a great way to work on pencil grasp and an awesome addition to one of the top 5 blog posts that we’ve shared, on improving pencil grasp with fine motor activities
 
 
 

A few more play dough recipes that look like a fun way to celebrate National Play Dough Day:

If you like the idea of using your broken crayon pieces in something as fun and creative as play dough, then you will love to try a few different ideas, too.  We’ve given crayon play dough a run for it’s fun and tried a few different versions.  Check them out and if you make a batch, let us know how you get creative with crayon play dough!
 

Favorite Play Dough recipes and activities for kids:

Click on the images or the links below each image:
 3 Ingredient Kinetic Sand Play Dough
 
 
 
 Fizzy Baking Soda Play Dough RecipeGLitter glue salt dough recipe for kids to play with in sensory playPatriotic Crayon Play Dough Recipe Crayon Salt Dough Recipe
 
 
 
 
 
 Body Wash Play Dough Recipe Frozen Pixy Sitx Candy Play Dough Pencil Grasp Play Dough Exercise
 
 
 
 
 
 
Do you LOVE using play dough as a sensory and fine motor tool in therapy and in play? I have a subscriber-only play dough mat that is designed to work on the intrinsic hand muscles which are needed for pencil grasp and fine motor skills.  Read more about the play dough mat and the areas it will help with HERE.  

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!)

 

 
Use broken crayons to make crayon play dough
Recycle broken crayons to make crayon play dough

Nursery Rhyme Crafts and Activities

nursery rhyme crafts

These nursery rhyme crafts are preschool crafts and activities that support development of motor skills using engaging and fun craft ideas. You’ll want to check out these preschool resources and all of our kids crafts that support child development.

Nursery Rhyme Crafts

When young children create these nursery rhyme crafts, they’ll develop skills in many areas:

Nursery Rhymes are the classic stories to tell to kids.  What a wonderful way to bring together generations through stories, rhymes, and classic tales we’ve all heard since childhood.  These crafts are a great addition to these nursery rhyme actions that build motor skills.
 
There is something about the sing song rhythm of nursery rhymes that pull in a child, lull them to a calm before sleep, and bring a smile to their faces.  
 
We joined up with a team of wonderful children’s activity bloggers to bring you nursery rhyme crafts and activities.  These are the projects you will want to do with your toddlers and preschoolers after reading classic nursery rhymes.  Each day this week, a new blogger will bring you a craft or activity that goes along with a nursery rhyme.  Each day, us Aunts will update this page with the new crafts and activities.  We’re excited to see all of the fun and can’t wait to share it with you!
 


 
Toddlers and preschoolers will love doing these crafts and activities that accompany 10 classic nursery rhymes.
 

 

 
 

Nursery Rhyme Crafts and Activities for Kids

 
We’ve got 10 days of 10 different nursery rhyme projects for you.  This is going to be fun!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Cola Soda Pop Play Dough Recipe

Call it cola, soda, pop…what have you…we are playing with it!  This sensory dough is no-bake and very cool to play with.  


We are joining the the 12 months of sensory dough bloggers to bring you a No-Bake play dough recipe this month.  You can see TONS of fabulous ideas from these bloggers for all kinds of sensory doughs.  They’ve been mixing up dough for sensory fun all year long and you will definitely want to check them out.  


Now it’s true that we love mixing up play dough and creating all kinds of concoctions.  Crayon play dough, anyone?  This month, September brings you no-bake play dough in the sensory dough series and we were more than happy to join in on the fun!  We made Cola Play Dough!

cola soda pop no bake play dough recipe for sensory play

No bake play dough recipe:


We started with just a few ingredients.  This no-bake recipe is easy, I promise!  Flour, salt, cola.  And that’s it.

Measure out 1 1/4 cups flour.  Stir in 2 Tbsp salt.  Make a small well in the center of the flour mixture.  Pour in 1/2 cup soda.  Watch the bubbles.

Stir the mixture until the dough starts to pull together.  Then, plop the dough onto a counter or floured surface and knead, knead, knead.

This is such a fun sensory experience for the kids (and mom).  The scent of the soda really is noticeable while mixing the dough up.  

If your dough is too sticky, add a little more flour until it no longer sticks to your hands.

This dough will last a few weeks in a closed plastic container or plastic bag pouch.  You will need to add a bit more flour the longer it sits.  It seems to get stickier the longer it sits.  

We pulled out a few clear cups and straws to play with our soda pop dough.

Ahhhh, refreshing 😉

The straws were great for poking holes in the dough, too.  A great fine motor task!


Don’t you want to play?

Press Here Book Activity

Press Here activity
If you love sensory activities to pair with children’s books, you will LOVE this Press Here book activity!  The book, “Press Here” is a memorable one that kids adore, but when you add a fun sensory play activity that goes with the book’s themes, you’ve got a winner. It has been so much fun coming up with play and learning ideas for HaroldElmerPete, and more.  This week, we’re reading and playing with the book, “Press Here” by Herve Tullet.

 

 
Sensory play activity for the book, Press Here. From Sugar Aunts
 

Press Here Book Activity

 
This post contains affiliate links.  
 
 
Press Here is a new book to us.  And what a fun book it is!  The bright and bold pictures, the movement and direction following, and the fun instructions made this book a huge hit in our house. 
 
Little Guy (age 5) is STILL talking about this book.  He loved following the directions to shake, pull, push, and move the dots and even the whole book.  We decided to put the movement into our play activity with a sensory based interpretation of this fun book.
 

 
I started with rainbow cardstock and a circle hole punch.  I punched a bunch of holes from all of the colors.  Little Guy (age 5) LOVED helping me with the hold punching.  Fun stuff!
 
 
How pretty are these colorful dots??
 
 
Add shaving cream to a container, and sprinkle in the colored dots.  Sensory play is ready for little fingers!
 



We pushed, pulled, and poked the dots just like in the book.  Be sure to talk about the colors while playing.  This is a great sensory bin to work on color identification.  Sensory play and learning go hand in hand, and this is a great way to learn and play.

 

Press Here Activities

For more Press here activities, check out the ideas listed below. Each Press Here book activity uses the concepts in the book, the fun colors of the dots, and lots of pressing! 

Check out the other Preschool Book Club bloggers for more Press Here ideas.  And be sure to watch for our next book club activity. You won’t want to miss it!
 
Mama. Papa. Bubba. blog: Magnetic Sensory Bag
Buggy and Buddy: Necklace Craft
Homegrown Friends: Movement Game
Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails: Eraser Painting
 
 
 
For more book-related activities based on popular children’s books, check out Exploring Books Through Play!
 

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Outdoor Pre-Reading Activity for New Readers

We’re back to join the All Things Kids bloggers with this month’s series.  We’re talking about Fall and Outdoor fun with the kids.  We are a family that plays outside every.single. day.  Friends at church have said to us, “Wow you guys are tan, you must spend a lot of time outside”… Yep! We do.  (with sunscreen, don’t worry haha) 

So, when we realized that this month’s series post is all about outdoor play this fall, we were beyond excited!  Getting outside with littles is necessary for the kids and for mama.  Otherwise, we have a tornado of toys in the house and children bouncing off the walls and each other.  Well, those things happen regardless, but the fresh air and yard to run in help.  A lot.  

We made an outdoor scavenger hunt for early readers and pre-readers.  This literacy activity would be perfect for any time of year, but there’s something extra crispy and fun about playing outside in the Fall.  We took the letters outside for letter learning and word sounding.  This isn’t our first outdoor literacy activity, We loved our sight word scavenger hunt.  
Outdoor Pre-Reading Activity for new readers from Sugar Aunts

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.  
Use clothes pins for a pre-reading activity. This is great for indoors or outdoors.


Using Clothes Pins in Learning

We started with a bunch of wooden spring clothes pins.  We use these clothes pins in a ton of learning and play activities.  Art, learning, and play are more fun with a fine motor manipulative like this simple household item.

Learning and play with clothes pins in literacy activity. from Sugar Aunts.


Literacy Pre-Reading Activity

Big Sister used a permanent marker to write uppercase letters on the clothes pins.  We wanted to use upper case letters so that Little Guy (age 5) would be able to identify the letters.  He is just starting to identify lower case letters, but I wanted to ensure confidence and success in this part of the activity so he would try something a litter harder for him: sounding out letters in pre-reading skills.  
Literacy Activity for kids Outdoors from Sugar Aunts



We worked together to sort out the letters on the clothes pins.  We did a few different activities with the clothes pins once we had all of the letters.

First, we went on a scavenger hunt around the yard, pinning our clothes pins to objects in nature with the corresponding letter.  It was a fun pre-reading task to sound out things that we saw.  Pinching the pins onto items was a fun fine motor task for both kids.  We pinned R to “roots”.



S is for “sticks”.


We did a few quizzes for Little Guy.  Big Sister and I thought of an item and said I know something that starts with the letter “S”.  He had to think and look to find something that started with “s” as he sounded out sssss.  This is such a great pre-reading activity for pre-readers.

B is for bark.

C is for clover.

M is for moss.

A is for arborvitae.  Time for a science lesson!


How many ABC items can you think of in the great outdoors?  We put together a list of ABC nature items that you can find in our NEW newsletter.  It’s a completely free way to be sure you see all of our posts.  Each Wednesday, you’ll receive an email of our latest blog posts along with other fun stuff.  Sign up for the newsletter to get the full list of ABCs of Nature items.  But don’t worry, we’ll be sharing the list with you at some point in the future.  Watch this space!

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Rock Activities for Kids

This week, we’re sharing fun ways to learn and play, explore, and create with Rocks!  
 
They can be found on roads, in the lawn, and alongside creeks…rocks are everywhere and very fun to play with.  These features from the Share It Saturday linky party will make you want to head outside and gather up a bunch of rocks.  Get ready for some rocky fun!
 

Rock Activities for Kids

Activities for Playing and learning with rocks

Rock Sensory Bin from 3 Dinosaurs
Sand and Rock Sensory Box from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

Rock Activities for Learning and Play 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Craft with Cupcake Liners

Little Guy is a HUGE fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We play ninja turtles or ninjas or ninja skills practice daily.  So, when we made this TMNT craft, he was beyond excited.  We’ve done a ninja turtle craft before and this one was just as much of a hit.  It would even be a great addition to a teenage mutant ninja turtle party.  Little Guy hung the craft on our dining room wall and checks it out daily.


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cupcake liner craft. From Sugar Aunts


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craft

 This post contains affiliate links.


To make a TMNT cupcake liner craft, you wll need: 



green mini cupcake liners
cardstock in red, blue, orange, and purple
glue stick 
mini googly eyes 
black marker


We started by gluing the green mini cupcake liners flat onto paper.  Cut the cardstock into strips to fit the cupcake liner faces.

Little Guy was furiously applying glue to these ninjas.


Glue the cardstock masks onto the cupcake liners.

Glue the eyes onto the masks.  Of course, acting silly with the googly eyes makes a better craft 😉

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cupcake liner craft. From Sugar Aunts


Finish with a ninja grin for each turtle. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cupcake liner craft. From Sugar Aunts

Your teenage mutant ninja turtle craft is done. Have fun!

Does your child LOVE TMNT?  Tell us about it on our Facebook page.