A Fun and Simple Outer Space Inspired Play Dough Recipe

Our new favorite is this Outer Space Inspired Play Dough Recipe. It is easy to make, has a fun color & sparkle, and can lead to fun activities all about outer space! The perfect activity to add to your list of space activities for kids.

Play dough is one of those activities that literally never gets old. Children as young as 1 year enjoy squishing, poking, and pounding a ball of play dough. Older children love manipulating play dough into designs or creations as well as using it as a tool for practicing other areas of learning, like ABCs, sight words, or simple math.

The kids always have a blast anytime that we make play dough but this one takes on a whole new world. It’s really fun and it’s a fun way to encourage the kids to want to learn more about space.

Space Inspired Play Dough

Not to mention play dough is a fantastic sensory activity, is simple to create and set up, and can keep kids busy for hours at a time. That being said, there is nothing wrong with mixing up play dough activities and adding a little sparkle to traditional activities kids already love. This can keep children’s interests even longer.

Even as an adult I find myself wanting to play with play dough here and there. There’s just something about how it molds and squishes between your hands. Plus, I love that it’s such a great learning tool as well.

I’ve also found that it’s great as a stress or anxiety reliever too because it’s so easy to squish and roll about. It’s easy to tell that we’re big fans of play dough in our house!

Recommended Space Books for Kids

Don’t forget to load up their brains with fun space books. The beauty of adding books to your space lessons is that they’re just full of so much knowledge. When the kids find a book that they’re excited to read, I instantly get excited as well. Maybe it’s the fact that I still have so much more that I want to learn about space, too!

In our house, we keep books handy all the time. They’re just the perfect addition to any lesson because they’re fast and easy to reference. The kids can easily pick up a book as well and start reading, which is something that I love.

When we’re studying all about space, I make certain to have at least 5-10 different space books available for the kids to read. This way they can grab different ones that they want and really dive in as often as they want as well.

I also like to keep them in the car for when we’re traveling because I’d much rather have them pick up a book about space than ask for a screen.

Explore the galaxy with any of these fun space books to discover the other planets in our solar system.

National Geographic Kids Everything Space: Blast Off for a Universe of Photos, Facts, and Fun!Super Cool Space Facts: A Fun, Fact-filled Space Book for Kids National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Space (National Geographic Little Kids First Big Books)The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System There Was a Black Hole that Swallowed the Universe: A Funny Rhyming Space Book from the #1 Science Author for Kids There’s No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library)

Outer Space Inspired Play Dough Recipe

This playdough recipe is really, really simple and is going to give the kids hours of fun play. Make certain that you let them join in on the process so that they can have plenty of creative fun.

The great news about making playdough is that it’s an activity that the kids can easily do as well. Being able to teach them how to follow directions while also teaching a subject or a lesson is such a great idea!

Knead until smooth. If sticky add a bit more flour. (The kids won’t mind the stickiness but you might!)

Add dye and fold over. Flip with each fold until the color is mixed. If the color is not deep enough you can add more dye. Kneading the color in allows you to really control the shade. The more that they knead the color, the more that it’s going to blend and be consistent throughout.

Add glitter and kneed it until evenly distributed. The more glitter, the better! Since the glitter is supposed to represent the stars, let them have fun with this. Glitter makes everything better!

You can always add in more glitter at a later point in time as well, so don’t stress over it too much. If you’re worried about adding in too much glitter, just start with a little bit at a time and go from there.

We used gold glitter for ours but you can easily use other colors of glitter, too. If the kids decide to use other colors of glitter, talk to them about what those represent in space. Gold glitter is stars but what would silver and red glitter represent? It’s a fun way to get them talking and thinking about space.

Ingredients

All you need are the following ingredients to get started with this simple galaxy playdough recipe. It’s super fast and easy to put together, too!

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups salt
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon Wilton black food dye
2 teaspoons gold glitter

Directions

Have the kids work through the directions with you and let them really take over the process. They’ll be able to complete this from start to finish and be so proud of what they were able to do.

Make a well in the flour and add the oil inside it.
Mix flour and salt together.
Add the water and start kneading the mixture.
If it gets too sticky you can add more flour.
Add the dye to the dough and mix thoroughly.
Store in an air tight container.

How to store leftover playdough

Make certain that you store the leftover playdough in a container with a lid. If not, it’s not going to last very long and you’ll have to make it over pretty quickly.

As long as you store it in a container that is sealable, it should stay fresh for several weeks at a time!