Cloud dough

We love cloud dough in our messy play classes, it is very tactile, mouldable and the babies love to squeeze it in their fingers and drop it. It is a fine dough which when pressed mounds into lumps and it is the ultimate messy play station! We couple our cloud dough with colourful toys, to provide a visual contrast and interest for the little ones. All the ingredients are safe for babies to taste, although we wouldn’t recommend that they eat a lot of it, and your baby should be constantly supervised while undertaking messy play.

Our cloud dough recipe 

8 cups of flour

1 cup of coconut oil (this makes the dough smell amazing)

This makes a large portion of dough so do scale back if it is for a small area or only one child.

We make our cloud dough in a kenwood mixer but you could also do it by hand, pour the flour into the bowl and gradually add the coconut oil to it making sure that all of the flour gets coated and that the oil doesn’t form a big ball in the flour, just keep mixing until the dough is fine and when you squeeze it together it forms a ball in your hand. We refrigerate the dough before use and use it the next day with our babies but you can keep it in an airtight box for up to a week.

It is a great idea to have some plastic toys to hand so your little one can experience a new texture while there is a familiar one present. We pop our cloud dough into a tuff tray but you can use any kind of container or box.

Our babies learn

creativity, how to explore and discover, different textures, cause and effect and motor skills.

Body systems involved

Proprioception body awareness, tactile discrimination, motor skills (both gross and fine motor control), self regulation, visual, olfactory, gustatory perception if the baby tastes the dough and auditory when listening to parents and the noise of the toys against the tray.

Do check out our post for more information on your baby’s senses and why sensory play is important!