We made these black glitter play dough spiders for a special activity this morning. Needless to say “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” was sung on repeat.
It’s really easy to make your own play dough. But true black play dough is tough to make.
Black can be made by mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow. Or… you can just use black food coloring.
We opted for the latter, but I put waaaay too much food coloring into this and it turned our hands slightly pink.
Oops.
Elena loved it, though.
I didn’t measure it out (typical me), but I’d say I used a teaspoon of gel food coloring, which was too much. When you make this, I’d start with a quarter teaspoon and add more if needed.
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How to Make Black Glitter Play Dough
Here’s the play dough recipe. It’s the same as our apple cinnamon, but quartered because we didn’t need much dough. The printable recipe is at the bottom of the post.
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- 2/3 c flour
- 1/4 c table salt
- 1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 2/3 c boiling water
- 4 tsp vegetable oil
- black gel food coloring
- silver glitter
Combine the dry ingredients (minus the glitter) in a dye-safe bowl (like glass) while you boil the water.
Add the oil to the dry ingredients.
Mix the food coloring with the boiling water. Then stir the water into the flour and oil mixture.
Stir with a spoon until the dough forms. If it’s not black enough, add a bit more food coloring and stir with the spoon again.
Dump out the dough on a work surface and let it cool off a bit before handling it.
Knead in a good amount of glitter. (The best part!)
If food coloring does stain your hands, rub it off with nail polish remover or hand sanitizer and a paper towel or rag.
Making Black Glitter Play Dough Spiders
We’re not big fans of spiders, and in fact, Elena didn’t want to make spiders initially. I told her we were making “cute spiders” and that was apparently motivation enough to play with the black glitter play dough.
For the invitation to make play dough spiders, I set out the following supplies:
- black glitter play dough
- googly eyes
- black pipe cleaners (cut 12″ sticks in half)
I showed the girls how to make a spider, and then invited them to make their own. As they played, we talked about what spiders look like in real life.
Scary. They have lotsa legs. Icky. Black. Fast. Yuck.
See. I told you the girls don’t really like spiders.
This whole activity was an effort to teach them that spiders don’t have to be scary. They can be cute!
Elena made a whole family of spiders (named after members of her actual family). We talked about how spiders have eight long legs which they use to spin their webs.
She wasn’t too interested in making atomically correct play dough spiders, however. So most of her spiders have less than eight legs. Also, we ran out of pipe cleaners and Mommy didn’t want to cut up any more.
But she did allow a brief counting lesson in which we counted the legs she added to each spider body.
What We’re Learning
This is the first of hopefully many activities the girls do together, so sharing was a big, big lesson. There were quite a few fights, mostly caused by Little Sis smashing or taking eyes off of Elena’s special spider creations. But there were also sweet moments where Big Sister helped Little Sis make her own spider.
It helped to have Elena put her spider family on the kitchen countertop where Lia couldn’t reach.
As the girls squeeze, roll, and otherwise manipulate the dough, they’re strengthening their fine motor muscles.
Lia (15 months) worked mostly on poking the dough and using her pincer grasp to pick up googly eyes. She also worked on NOT eating the play dough. (Does black play dough really look that appetizing???)
Language development is always a big focus for us when we do activities together. I didn’t teach Elena any new vocabulary words, but she indirectly learned about adjectives (describing words).
Lia learned the word “eye,” though she kept pointing to her own nose when I asked her to point to her eye. Shrug. Close enough for now!
There was a little bit of learning about the characteristics of spiders (size, number of legs), but mostly it was imaginative play because we were focused on making spiders that weren’t too scary.
We also did a little counting with a focus on one-to-one correspondence (counting each object only one time). We’ve been working on this for quite some time, and I know it’ll take more practice to master.
I love how each spider looks different and is a different size. Lia’s is the one in the bottom right corner with the five eyes.
I also love seeing these two girls working side by side. Gives me all the feels!
Your Turn to Make Black Glitter Play Dough Spiders
Scroll all the way down to see the printable recipe for black glitter play dough. Or if you’d rather purchase black dough, here’s a shopping link for black glitter play dough.
Looking for an organized guide of fun, easy activities to do with your toddler that also encourages their growth and development?
I’ve created a 3-month activity planner just for busy parents like you! The plan includes 65 detailed, simple, and stress-free activities including: arts and crafts, sensory play, motor skills, and STEM–all using easy-to-find supplies.
Let me help make planning activities for your toddler easy, so you can skip the stress and get straight to the fun!
Black Glitter Play Dough
Supplies
- 2/3 cup flour
- 1/4 cup table salt
- 1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 2/3 cup boiling water
- 4 tsp vegetable oil
- black food coloring
- silver glitter
Instructions
- Combine the dry ingredients (minus the glitter) in a dye-safe bowl (like glass) while you boil the water.
- Add the oil to the dry ingredients.
- Mix the food coloring with the boiling water. Then stir the water into the flour and oil mixture.
- Stir with a spoon until the dough forms. If it’s not black enough, add a bit more food coloring and stir with the spoon again.
- Dump out the dough on a work surface and let it cool off a bit before handling it.
- Knead in a good amount of glitter.