Snow Dough Science

My kids love playing with all sorts of dough, and they adore all things arctic. We’ve revisited this theme a few times in our homeschool. This time, when my 5 year old pulled out the Arctic Toob and asked if I’d make a “snow bin” for her in our sensory table, I tried out a new recipe of snow dough.

We gathered our ingredients and started mixing. You’ll need 1/2 cup of white hair conditioner, 3 cups of baking soda, and some sparkly glitter. Since it was a particularly stir-crazy kind of day, I grabbed some lavender essential oil, too, to bring a little calm into the kids’ play.

Mix the hair conditioner and baking soda well, then sprinkle generous amounts of glitter into the mixture. {I mixed 5 drops of lavender essential oil into the hair conditioner before combining it with the baking soda.} Your results should look like crumbly and sparkly snow that can be molded together.

For a short while, the bigger kids joined the little ones in play, but they abandoned the snow mounds for Lego Hero Factory battles, giving the little ones lots of free exploration time. They made snow hills for their Eskimo guy to sled down, and commented on how the polar bear and arctic hare both blended in with the snow.

After awhile, I pulled the big kids back in for some science fun. I don’t know about your kids, but mine are always willing to play with fizzy concoctions. My kids have experimented with baking soda and vinegar lots of times, and have discussed the reasons they react over and over again {the hazard of having a science-geek mom}, so I challenged them to make a snowman with their snow dough and tell me how they could “melt” them.

With their “years” of experience on their side, the big kids immediately requested vinegar, and so I grabbed some small glass jars, droppers, and let them melt the snow.

It really was even more fun than I anticipated. Fizzy science never gets old, but watching them “inject” their baking soda snowmen with droppers full of vinegar was a blast. The snowmen looked like they were breaking down from the inside out. It was really cool to watch.

The kids all played for over an hour, and have asked several times since for me to make the dough again. It’s definitely a winner. What do you think?

If you’re looking for more fun ways to use snow dough, check out the other kid activity bloggers who gave this dough a whirl this month, and be sure to check out the group Pinterest board for more fun sensory dough recipes.