Rainbow Salt Dough Craft for Kids!

Hi, today I thought I’d share another of my fave little art and craft activities I love to do with kids using a super easy salt dough recipe.

Once you have your salt dough you can basically make anything you desire, but since my little girl Indi’s interest in rainbows has no sign of waning, I used this as the focus for our creations.

This is a really simple salt dough sculpture as the only thing children need to do is ‘roll out little snakes’ similar to what they would do with play dough.

I had Indi (3 years old) make lots of little snakes that got ‘bigger and bigger’ (great for teaching children size too).

To keep the snakes together I used a thin paintbrush to apply a little water to help keep the sections secured together.

After our rainbows had hardened (I partly microwaved ours to speed up the process, then baked for about 5 minutes), I spray painted our rainbows white for a nice fresh base. We then used chalk pens to colour them. For older children you could be more specific about the actual colour spectrum, but for younger ones you may simply let them enjoy the process of creation.

I then used another spray of clear varnish which really brought their rainbow sculptures to life. If you don’t have access to these materials, you can simply paint your rainbow or you could even try adding food colouring to your initial batch of salt dough (colouring it in small batches).

It is a wonderful sensory activity that has endless learning opportunities and is great for developing both fine motor and creativity in children.

I absolutely love how perfectly imperfect Indi’s rainbow is, it’s actually my favourite!

Rainbow salt dough craft for kids | cute toddler, preschool or kindergarten art activity that kids will LOVE!

how to make salt dough

Here is the recipe I used during this activity, it is really simple and takes only about two minutes to prepare. You can also keep any left over dough in the fridge sealed in an air tight bag or container for a couple of weeks to use later.

salt dough recipe

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups of plain flour
1 cup of water
1 cup of salt

PROCEDURE:

In a large bowl mix all dry ingredients.
Gradually stir in water.
Once combined, knead with hands until mixture is smooth.
Mould and shape into any creation you like.
Once complete, bake in oven at 180C until dough hardens.

NOTE: The amount of time needed to bake depends on the size and thickness of the salt dough creations.
If mix is too sticky, add a little more flour. If mix is too dry, add a tiny dash more water.

OPTION: salt dough can be air dried if desired (takes a few days) or microwave for 1 minute at a time until dough becomes hard.

CAUTION – dough will be HOT to touch, never bake without adult supervision.

Once complete, these look really cute displayed in your child’s bedroom using either a big dob of blutac, or you can hot glue gun a ribbon on the back at the top and hang the artwork for all to admire! They would also make a very sweet gift for someone special to brighten their day.