For the Kids: Homemade Snow Dough

Spring can't come soon enough. I'm no winter-hater by any means, but we're all getting that stir-crazy, cabin fever feeling at our house. To help combat that antsy feeling,  I've been on the lookout for good ideas for indoor play to keep us distracted. Yesterday, I came across this idea for snow play dough on Pinterest.

It's really simple -- snow dough is just regular homemade play dough sans food coloring. About a year and a half ago, I did a post about the best homemade play dough recipes. For this batch, I followed recipe #1 from that post (minus the coloring), which goes as follows:

In a medium saucepan combine:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp. cream of tartar
Then add:
1 cup water
5-6 tsp. vegetable oil
Cook over medium heat and stir constantly until mixture forms into a ball. It will appear lumpy but keep stirring. After it forms a ball, turn out on counter and knead until cool. Store at room temperature in airtight container or bag.

The blog I got this idea from suggested adding glitter to the mix to make it more like sparkly snow. I didn't have any glitter on hand, so we skipped that. The site suggested making snowmen, snowballs, and other similar creations. My five-year-old decided to re-enact the battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.

It's such a simple activity but still a lot of fun. Leaving out the food coloring creates a whole new aspect to play dough. Who knew?  I love it.

And so does my little Star Wars enthusiast.