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One of my favorite recipes for playdough is one that goes back to my days of being a preschool teacher – Koolaid Playdough. The scent and bright colors make it even more fun to play with.
The recipe itself can be pulled together in about ten minutes – even if you have little ones helping out! When we made the above batch of seven rainbow colors, it was right around $5 – so inexpensive and something fun to make.
This recipe also makes great gifts for others, so double up your batches and drop some off at your friend’s houses as well. We bring extras over every now and then to the grandparents too!
How to Make Koolaid Playdough
Want to make a few batches of your own? Here’s what you will need to pull together for each batch:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
2 Tbsp cream of tartar
1 envelope unsweetened Koolaid
1 cup water
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1. Mix flour, salt, cream of tartar, Koolaid and water in medium saucepan. Stir in oil.
2. Mix over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until mixture forms a ball in the center of pan. Dough will start darkening in color.
3. Remove from pan {caution: will be HOT}. Knead until soft.
4. Store in airtight container or ziploc bag.
We used a variety of Koolaid flavors to make our batches. The lemonade was the only one that I added a few drops of food coloring to so that it would be a little brighter in color. Here’s a list of the flavors I used:
- fruit punch {red}
- orange {orange}
- lemonade {yellow}
- lemon-lime {green}
- berry blue {blue}
- grape {purple}
- pink lemonade {pink}
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Making the playdough this way always makes me want to eat it ;-)
I know! But save the peanut butter playdough for that! :)
Very true!
need to do this, we ran out of playdough, not a pretty sight with 3 little girls that loves to create :-)
My kids will love this — PlayDoh has gotten expensive for our very lean budget so we will be making our own now. Thank you so much!
If you can buy the cream of tartar in bulk, it is a HUGE savings!!
Does the koolaid not stain your hands? I know if my kiddos splash it when they are drinking it stains their faces for 24 hours! I think this sounds like a great idea, just don’t know if I want multi-colored hands?
since all the cooking is done before, it hasn’t ever been a problem. :)
Hi Jolanthe,
We were just looking for clay activities today. How funny that I got this post delivered to me. I follow your blog and really should comment more. Thank you for sharing this.
Karina
enjoy!
This is such a great idea! Love it. I just wanted you to know that I have you down as one of my 10 most inspiring work at home moms. I’m so glad that I got to meet you at BEECH, and all your wonderful ideas here at HC are definitely worth sharing with all my readers.
It was SO much fun meeting you at BEECH – really truly!! :) I love, love, love your smile!!
Thanks for the post. How long does this keep?
you can store it in the fridge to keep it longer. I can’t remember exactly how long it keeps – sorry!!
I just made a batch for my twins for their 3rd birthday. I did every color mentioned. I did not have much luck with the pick or yellow color being very bold. The dough almost looked white with a tint of color. I had to add a few drops of yellow to the lemonade (yellow) and a few drops of red to the pink lemonade (pink). Once I added those few extra drops of food coloring, they colors were much more vibrant. I love the sent and the girls were so excited to this batch of play dough to play with!
I just re-read…sorry for the typos!
this is a very good recipe for playdough. smell good, nice texture. thank you so much for sharing the recipe.
Question–have you ever halved this recipe and still used one koolaid packet? I’d love to be able to make half this recipe with one koolaid flavor and then make half again with a different flavor. Just wondered if you’d ever tried it. I’m debating whether to experiment, but I don’t want to mess it up and waste my koolaid (can’t get it in England).
I haven’t ever tried, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t work! :)
We dont have Koolaid here? So may I ask what is Koolaid and what do you recommend to substitute it?
Koolaid is a drink mix (we use the one that is just a flavoring/coloring with no sugar for playdough). Not sure if you have something like that where you live? I’ve otherwise used a similar recipe and added a few drops of scented oil and food coloring to make the playdough.
Thank you. I shall go to the supermarket and find them
How long does this play dough last?
I honestly couldn’t tell you – but I remember using it for months in my classroom when I was teaching. It depends on how many kids you have handling it and how often. :)