Cloud Dough Letters

I have been very much looking forward to making Cloud Dough for J but with all the shenanigans of packing to move house going on and sleepless nights with Baby G, I’ve been putting it off! I’ve been thinking, ‘oooh the mess!’ I wish I hadn’t waited so long now as not only does it have a beautiful, delicate texture but it also wasn’t as messy as I thought it would be! In fact, I just kept the quantity I made down and in fact it was more than enough for J to enjoy!

How to make Cloud Dough:

Usually the ratio to make cloud dough is 1 cup of oil to 8 cups of flour. You can use baby oil (smells gorgeous and leaves your hands lovely and smooth) or vegetable oil if you’re worried it will go in your little ones mouth.

For our play session though, in honesty I didn’t measure it out. I heaped about 5 tablespoons of flour onto a roasting tin and squirted on the baby oil, mixing it until I reached the cloud dough consistency.

So, what is the cloud dough consistency if you haven’t made it before? I took a few photos of what cloud dough can do, purely for the purpose of this post… I didn’t enjoy it at all! You should be able to squeeze it into a ball that holds until you crumble it back to a very soft, sandy texture.

You can also put it unto moulds that hold their shape. As wet sand would in a bucket for example…

Also, you should be able to make a shape and stick things in to make a picture!

For J, I presented the cloud dough in it’s crumbly state and gave him some letter moulds and treasures from his Autumn walks. By placing it on a towel, it really did hold most of the inevitable mess.

As this was J’s first experience of cloud dough, he experimented with the new texture first. He sniffed it and said, ‘it smells so lovely Mummy!’ He rubbed his hands through it…

He pinched it between his fingers and discovered that is stuck together and retained it’s shape…

Once he’d discovered this, he pushed it all together and made a wall…

J being J, he then role played on the wall with his fingers. He sang ‘Humpty Dumpty,’ he kicked the wall, he walked on the wall and much more…

After the lovely role play with his fingers, he turned his focus towards the letter moulds. He began by pressing them into his mound and removed them saying the sounds as he did so.

He also filled the moulds with the dough, sprinkling it in and pressing it down to make sure it was full.

He was delighted when the x was formed on the tray and declared that ‘x marks the spot!’ All of a sudden it was a pirate adventure and his little finger characters were in use again!! You may also see a tiny baby hand feature in the photo below!! G couldn’t resist getting involved and kept pulling the tray towards her! Due to the fact I had used Baby oil though, I didn’t really want her exploring it too much. I will make her a vegetable oil version next week.

She was more than happy though exploring the letter moulds and J played happily all afternoon! Cloud dough proved very popular and in all honesty, I had very little to clean up afterwards! Once I’ve had a little more sleep and not surrounded by boxes, there will be a big sensory tub of cloud dough made and I can’t wait!!