Playdough is such a staple in my home daycare and this ice cream playdough recipe is awesome!
My kids love to play with it and it makes the perfect addition to pretend play prompts and sensory tables. It’s a no-cook recipe that is super easy to make but can be used for weeks. We used materials we already had in the house and had the playdough made in minutes! It’s so easy but it looks just like ice cream!
Ice Cream Playdough Recipe for Sensory Play
This recipe for homemade playdough is so easy and the results are seriously awesome. And it truly looks like ice cream! My daughter and the daycare kids love this activity. They play with it for long periods and are always asking me to make it! It’s probably one of our ost made playdough recipes.
Materials needed
- 3/4 cup of lotion (or even conditioner would work)
- 1.5 cups of cornstarch
- Food coloring
- Bowl and ice cream scooper
I used some lotion I’d had sitting around since I received it at Christmas. The great thing about using lotion is that it’s scented! It made the ice cream playdough smell good with no additional steps! We made this by mixing the cornstarch with the lotion. if the consistency isn’t quite where you want it just add a bit more lotion or cornstarch.
I will say you want to make sure and not mix it up or smooth it out as much, like you would regular playdough, otherwise, it won’t have the “ice cream” look.
We also added red food coloring to ours to give it a little color. We didn’t mix it in completely, just slightly, so that it gave it some coloring streaks as you would find in ice cream!
Once it was mixed up I put it out on our sensory table. To go with it I added a few small condiment cups (4 for $1 at Wal-Mart) and ice cream scooper to the dough and let the kids go crazy.
I plan to save an ice cream container the next time we have some. It would be fun to clean out and use with this ice cream playdough!
They LOVED it!!!! My preschoolers used this playdough to in a pretend play ice cream shop! They made signs and used our kitchen set for their ice cream shop. It was fun to see how they worked together, used their imaginations, and how much fun they had! My younger daycare kids had a blast just scooping, squishing, and smelling it.
This ice cream playdough recipe is a bit stickier and a bit messier than regular playdough but it is not as messy as slime or goop. We used it outside because I knew my younger kids would definitely make a mess.
What’s your favorite homemade playdough recipe?
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