10 Ways to Play with Cloud Dough {Sensory Summer}

This week’s Sensory Summer bin was filled with….Cloud Dough! We love this stuff for so many reasons!

It’s ridiculously EASY to make (8 cups flour + 1 cup veg. oil)
It’s taste safe (not yummy, but safe!)
It has a smooth and fluffy texture but holds shapes when you press it.
And of course it is MESSY (Okay so I don’t love this part, but my kiddos do, so it is perfect for summer when I can take the whole bin outside and not worry about clean up!)

If you want to gather all of your materials before you start, we found almost everything else we needed at Target, The Dollar Tree or on Amazon. Here are all the materials we used:

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Flour
Vegetable Oil
Plastic or Silicone Cupcake Holders

Birthday Candles
Wooden Spoons
Rolling Pin
Whisks
Measuring Spoons
Measuring Cups
Sand Toy Ice Cream Set
Sand Castle Molds
Mini Cookie Cutters
Mini Baking Pans
Powdered Food Coloring
Plastic Spoons and Cups
Sand Shovels and Rakes
Construction Vehicles
Toy Cars
Play Dishes
Baking Soda
Vinegar
Eye Droppers

Cloud Dough Cupcakes:

We started out the week by mixing up a big batch of cloud dough in our Under Bed Clear Storage Bin. I use the ratio of 8 cups flour to 1 cup vegetable oil for our cloud dough. To fill the bin with lots of cloud dough for the week I made 4 batches so we surely wouldn’t run out from lots of spills throughout the week. Then we made a pretend cupcake shop with plastic cupcake holders, birthday candles, wooden spoons, rolling pin, whisks, measuring spoons, and measuring cups. The girls had lots of fun baking and singing happy birthday while pretending for this activity.

Cloud Dough Ice Cream Shop:

For this activity, I switched out the cupcake supplies for this sand toy ice cream set. Madelynn scooped and served me ice cream all afternoon.

Cloud Dough Castles:

Next up, we build sandcastles with our fluffy cloud dough and sand castle molds. The girls loved the difference in texture from regular sand castle building And I loved that I didn’t need to hose the kids down afterwards like I do when they play in the sandbox.

Cloud Dough Cookies:

Another baking themed activity we tried was making cookies. Madelynn pressed the cloud dough into mini cookie cutters and placed them on mini baking pans before baking them in the sun. They didn’t stay together too well after popping them out of the molds, but we still had fun mixing, measuring and making all the shapes.

Cloud Dough Colors:

I’ve been wanting to try dying our cloud dough for a while but I was nervous about staining so I figured summer was a perfect time to give it a go. I sprinkled powdered food coloring a little at a time into small amounts of cloud dough until I got the color I wanted. I used my hands to mix and barely had any color rub off on them. The little bit of color that was left on my hands easily washed out and the same with the girls clothes, so win-win. The girls loved mixing and experimenting with the colors until everything turned to kind of a gray color in the end.

Cloud Dough Measuring and Mixing:

For this simple activity the girls used measuring spoons and measuring cups to experiment with sizes. Madelynn and I talked about predicting how many spoonfuls it would take to fill the cups and Aubrey scooped, mixed and stirred away.

Cloud Dough Shovels and Rakes:

For this activity I pulled out a few of our sand shovels and rakes and we raked and smoothed the cloud dough out. It was actually quite relaxing like raking a zen garden. A good change of pace from some of the more active play activities we did this week.

Cloud Dough Tracks:

To make tracks in our play dough we first pressed and packed the dough down on the bottom of our bin to make a nice base. Then we added our construction vehicles and toy cars to experiment with different kinds of tracks. This also led to lots of digging and building a mountain to drive the cars down.

Cloud Dough Tea Party:

What kid doesn’t love a good tea party? All you need are some play dishes and a little imagination. Luckily the dough is taste safe just in case your littlest ones decide to take a nibble like mine 😉

Cloud Dough Volcano:

Finally when we finished all of our other activities we were ready for some REALLY messy fun with our cloud dough. First, I mixed in LOTS of baking soda. I didn’t measure it, but the more you add the bigger the reaction, so you be the judge on how much you want to use. Then I gave the girls a few cups with vinegar and eye droppers. We started out by gently adding a few drops at a time to see what would happen then Madelynn progressed to dumping cups full of vinegar for huge fizzy rivers of fun.

Have you tried cloud dough with your kids? I’d love to hear your creative ideas for this sensory bin favorite, leave me a message with your favorite way to play!

If you missed our previous themes, you can catch up here:

Sensory Summer

This summer we are spending a whole week at a time using the same sensory bin full of materials and coming up with different ways to play every day. See you next week when we explore, play, learn and get messy with…PAPER! Here are the themes and plans coming your way all summer long: