When my little one is home with me all summer, we are always looking for fun and different things to do during the day! Sometimes, the pool, toys, and TV get boring after a while. I love providing sensory experiences for him that are fun, exciting, and encourage his imagination.
One day we decided to experiment to see if we could create a cold playdoh experience, that resembled ice cream. And behold, ice cream dough was born!
Ice Cream Dough is such a fun way to kick off summer and is the ultimate sensory experience! Ice Cream Dough is soft like playdoh, yet has the consistency of real ice cream and is cold to the touch, adding to the sensory delight of this play!
To kick off Mason’s summer vacation, we decided to make some Ice Cream Dough and have a pretend ice cream stand! It was so much fun that even I couldn’t keep my hands out of it!
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Ice Cream Dough
Ingredients:
- Baking Soda
- Water
- Refrigerator
- For Vanilla: 1 box of vanilla pudding or extract
- For Strawberry: 1 Pack of strawberry kool-aid
- For Chocolate: Cocoa Powder
- Other flavors: Duncan Hines Frosting Mix
It’s super easy to make your ice cream dough! All you need to do is pour the entire box of baking soda into a mixing bowl. Next, you want to add your “flavor” or “scent” {this is totally optional}. For other scents, you could use a Duncan Hines Frosting Pack {found in the baking aisle} which come in MANY different scents. You could literally make a whole ice cream shop using different flavors. Next, SLOWLY add water to the bowl until the dough is soft and fluffy, and just slightly damp. You don’t want to overdo it on the water, or your dough will be too runny. Next, just place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Then, it’s time to PLAY! SCOOP! SERVE!
I set Mason up with some bowls, spoons, ice cream scoop, ice cream cones, and some colored rice for “sprinkles”!
He literally played for 2 hours with this dough. Our porch was a MESS when he was done, but nothing a hose couldn’t help clean up! I also added in some sequins for extra fun!
To get 5 more SENSORY PLAY RECIPES, including our Colored Rice recipe {sprinkles}, click HERE! It’s yours FREE!
What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Will you be making this dough with your kids?
Erica Leggiero
Erica Leggiero, M.Ed. has been working and teaching in the field of early childhood education for over 7 years. Erica is currently the director and teacher at a Preschool Enrichment Program in her area. Erica believes that young children learn best through play and exploration, and she is constantly looking for new and creative ways to incorporate learning through play. She embraces this belief in all of the activities she creates in her preschool classroom, and loves sharing them here on her blog. Erica has also co-authored the book, "Learn With Play" with other kid bloggers in the preschool field.
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They look like they are having such fun. What a original idea. Thanks for sharing at the #HomeMattersParty