Pretend play comes alive with this melting ice cream playdough. With a consistency in between oobleck and playdough, it really does mimic the look of melting ice cream. 
Kids can pretend that they are making ice cream or creating a play ice cream parlour. It’s fun to make this dough in several colours.
Melting Ice Cream Playdough:
Materials needed:
1/2 cup of cornstarch
1/4 cup of coffee creamer
a few drops of food colouring
Directions:
- Combine the coffee creamer and the cornstarch.
- Add a few drops of food colouring.
- Mix well.
- You will be able to form a ball with the dough, but it will ‘melt’.
- When not playing with it, store the ice cream playdough in a resealable freezer bag in the fridge.
- Allow it to sit out for a bit to get to room temperature before playing again.
The dough feels like a solid, but it behaves as if it is a liquid. The result is an interesting and engaging sensory play material!
Although this playdough recipe is technically taste-safe, it doesn’t taste good! So while kids may want to pretend to be assembling ice cream cones, they probably won’t want to pretend to eat them.
Sensory Play ideas:
Create a playdough station. Set out plastic ice cream cones, bowls, spoons, and an ice cream scoop. I’ve found some really cute ice cream bowls and spoons at the Dollar Store that would be perfect. If you want, you can also set out sprinkles. Kids can then make pretend ice cream cones. 
While they play, kids can discuss the texture of the dough and what happens when they handle it. They can also talk about the look and smell of the dough. It may smell a bit like ice cream and they can try to guess why that might be based on the ingredients in it.
Check out some of our other playdough stations:
I have since made this recipe several times. I have made it on the stovetop or in the KitchenAid. The reason that I prefer that method is because it is easier on my arms. Either method works though.
Once the playdough is made, it can be played with just like regular playdough.
This playdough engages the tactile, olfactory, visual, and proprioceptive senses.
Peppermint Essential Oil Christmas Playdough Recipe:
I find that the easiest way to make playdough is to use the KitchenAid mixer. Add the flour, salt, cream of tartar to the KitchenAid mixer. With the dough beater (the flat one), begin mixing on low and add the oil, food colouring, and 
My kids explored and created with the peppermint playdough for hours. One pounded the dough with their palms while another preferred to roll it out with a rolling pin. They shaped it using their hands or the cookie cutters. They pressed beads and mini ornaments and pushpins (tacks) and jingle bells into the shapes. They discovered that once playdough is inside jingle bells, they no longer jingle!
Snow Playdough Recipe:
Our neighbours were over playing and Mr. V. thought of using a pine cone as a stamp to create a pattern in the playdough. Such a cool idea! Little Miss J. used the cookie cutter and on the inside of the cutout created, she used the snowflake stamp. The result was so pretty.
Strawberries and chocolate are something I think of when I think about Valentine’s Day. Chocolate playdough was easy to make. I used red glitter in the dark pink playdough to make it look like strawberry.
Here are the recipes for the play dough. Both recipes can also be found in my 
The only negative thing about this playdough is that it smells so good and the colour looks so much like true gingerbread dough that kids want to eat it. In fact, my great-niece was over last night and couldn’t resist tasting it!
