Gingerbread Play-Dough

Its just gingerbread week around here! On Monday the kids and I changed up our regular school routine a bit. We made gingerbread play-dough and used it for some of our activities. I printed off some fun holiday and gingerbread themed play dough mats that I found online and we used those with our play-dough. My 3 year old LOVES play dough. He's played with it every day this week for hours at a time. A day or two ago, a friend sent over some gingerbread play-dough she'd made this week, too! So we have lots! But she went above and beyond--she sent some plain white play-dough as well in a ziplock bag. She told us to cut off the corner and "ice" our gingerbread men! So fun! So we busted out the Christmas cookie cutters to use with her gingerbread "dough" and "icing." I tried out a couple gingerbread play dough recipes and this was what I came up with as our favorite. Hope you can find a way to enjoy it this season if you have kids!

Gingerbread Play-Dough
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup table salt
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 Tbs ground cinnamon
1 Tbs ground ginger
2 Tbs oil
1 cup water

In a medium saucepan, stir together flour, salt, cream of tarter, and spices. Add oil and water and cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly, until a thick ball forms. Turn out onto parchment paper or a board and knead a minute or two until smooth. Allow to cool and let the kids have at it!

Notes: Feel free to use other spices like cloves or nutmeg. These are just ones easily and locally available to me. To make a white play-dough, just omit the spices.

Here are some links to the play-dough mats we printed off, laminated, and used to play with!
-- Gingerbread themed mats
-- Other Christmas themed mats