I don’t know about you, but Monday came in like a LION over here (and actually Tuesday and Wednesday did too… is it the weather?!). In the midst of our rollercoaster of a morning, my sister sent me a TikTok video that included a recipe for cloud dough (bless her for coming through with a great idea when I needed it!). I showed it to Fletcher and he wanted to make it IMMEDIATELY.
Since we’re still doing school virtually, we have an extra hour in the mornings. Sometimes that’s helpful and other times it’s more of a challenge. Yesterday, it was the former, as it allowed us a little more time to settle into the day. When Fletcher expressed an interest in making the recipe, I quickly gathered the ingredients (cheap conditioner and cornstarch) so as not to miss the window of opportunity and we got to work.
It was super simple – 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part conditioner. You can choose to include food coloring, but we tend to be food coloring enthusiasts and it was right before we needed to get online so I didn’t even mention it…we’ll save that for a weekend. And clouds are white…. so it worked!
We made two batches and found that the dough formed better by incorporating the ingredients by hand rather than using a wooden spoon or spatula. The kneading, folding and mixing of the cornstarch and conditioner gave Fletcher some really nice sensory input and seemed to slow his racing mind a bit. And… it was just enough to ease his transition into school. For that, I was incredibly grateful.
We left the ball of cloud dough in a bowl on the table and Fletcher played with it in between his virtual classes throughout the day. It’s a nice consistency – more play dough than slime or oobleck which tend to be a lot messier. Max, who tends to avoid weird or slimy textures, even gave the dough a few drive-by, non-committal pokes which was a win for him! We will, without a doubt, be adding this recipe to our sensory tool box.
There are tons of recipes online if you search for Cloud Dough. Some include other ingredients and flare, but I loved this minimalist approach – super easy! For all you TikTok lovers, you can view the video we used for our recipe here.
Now… here’s to easier mornings the rest of the week?! I’m speaking that into existence for all of us :).
