Sensory Play: Glittery Blue Moon Dough

Moon Dough, cloud dough, moon sand, mouldable sand... Call it what you like, it's one of the most amazing homemade sensory substances out there! Silky soft and mouldable, this three-ingredient moon dough smells and feels absolutely amazing.

Squeeze it in your hand or press it into a mould, and it holds it's shape. Push on it lightly, and “poof”, that shape crumbles into a fine, satiny powder. It's amazing! Kids of all ages love this stuff! Even adults have a hard time keeping their hands out of it because it feels so good. Moon dough smells heavenly, and it leaves your hands feeling wonderfully soft and smooth.

We're colouring our dough today to add to the sensory experience. Not only does it smell and feel wonderful, our blue moon dough looks fabulous too!

This dough will keep indefinitely, and the recipe can be easily doubled for a classroom or party activity.

Let’s start with the basic non-coloured moon dough. It calls for just two simple ingredients:

Basic Moon Dough Recipe

• large bowl
• potato masher or pastry cutter
• 4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup baby oil

In a large bowl, mix the flour and baby oil together with a potato masher or pastry cutter. It will take several minutes for your dough to reach the desired consistency. When it starts to resemble coarse oatmeal, you're almost there!

Continue to mix until the powder becomes smooth. Test it by squeezing some in your hand. When it holds its shape nicely, it's ready!

Blue Moon Dough

If you'd like to colour your moon dough, you have a few options.

Note that regular, water-based food colouring will not work. The oil in the dough will repel the watery food colouring, and they just won't blend together.

What to use instead:

• candy food colouring, which is oil-based (check where you buy candy-making supplies)
• a couple of heaping tablespoons of tempera paint powder (this is what I use)
• a chalk pastel (place it in a baggy and crush it into a powder with a rolling pin)
• sidewalk chalk (crushed the same way as the chalk pastel)

Use the potato masher or pastry cutter to completely mix your colour into the cloud dough.

Time to play!

Transfer your moon dough into a shallow storage container (I love my dollar-store kitty-litter bin). Add some scoops, spoons, cookie cutters and moulds and dig in!

Moon dough provides hours of fun and learning, and all that squeezing, scooping and stirring is wonderful for helping to develop fine-motor skills and hand muscles! Running your hands through the powdery mixture is very therapeutic. The hooligans play so quietly with this activity. It's soothing and relaxing; a wonderful way for children to play, create and explore.

Want to take things up another notch? Toss in a handful of glitter!

Just when you thought sensory play couldn’t get any better!