When you are dealing with low tone hands it can be hard to find a therapy dough that encourages work with fingers but doesn’t exhaust their little hands too quickly. You have to walk the fine line between fun, work, and overwhelm.
We have been playing around with a wide variety of therapy dough recipes, slime recipes, and fun playdough recipes to come up with a system that works with our occupational therapy goals.
This recipe is super simple and doesn’t involve tons of cooking and stirring. Nobody has time for that especially a special needs homeschooling parent.
Recipe For Frugal Therapy Dough
Ingredients:
Cornstarch
Hair Conditioner
I used 2 parts cornstarch to 1 part conditioner.
Then mix. Start with a base of cornstarch and slowly add conditioner. We found that the dough formed up after a minute or two of kneading.
The more conditioner you use the stickier it will be and some kids might dislike the feel on their fingers. Using a bowl and spoon until you get the right consistency would be a good idea. Since I have a sensory seeker she dove in hands first and made… well a mess but it was a good one. Hands covered and sensory fun!
The dough was very simple to make. Aromamatic. And non-toxic when you choose your conditioner carefully.
The kids worked with the dough for several days and had a great time. This is not a long lived dough. After several days it started to dry out. Well worth the couple of days of fun with a soft malleable dough that helped to encourage very low tone hands to work.