4th of July Patriotic Sensory Dough

Here's an awesome, easy to make, fun to play with sensory dough for the kids to play with on the 4th of July. If you bring this to a party where children will be playing, it's sure to be a hit! I did last year and it was loved by many!

You'll need:

- A big box of baking soda

- A packet of cherry Koolaid

- A packet of ice blue raspberry lemonade Koolaid

- Dry pasta, I used rigatoni 

- A bin

- Another bin, because kids like to transfer!

It's really simple to make. All you have to do is pour the baking soda into your bin until you've reached the desired amount that you think you'll be needing for the kids to play with. Then you SLOWLY add water and mix around with your hand until it becomes moldable but still crumbly. If you add to much water it will quickly become all liquid. Next, separate it into thirds. Put one third in one bowl, another third in another bowl, and you can leave one third in the bin since it is staying white, but you'll want that third in the middle. (the picture shows what I'm talking about). 

Pour the packet of cherry Koolaid into one of the bowls of sensory dough and mix it in until it's all colored. Repeat this process with the ice blue raspberry lemonade Koolaid packet and the other bowl of sensory dough. Then add both doughs back into the bin, in the red, white and blue order.

Now, you can omit the hard, colored pasta if you want, but I think it makes it funner and cuter as well as adds more texture elements for more sensory play. All you have to do is put some of the dry pasta into a ziploc bag, add in a little bit of vinegar or alcohol, shake it around so they're coated, then add in a few drops of food coloring and shake it all around again until all colored. Then lay them on a paper towel to dry for a little while. You'll obviously use two separate plastic bags to make the colored pastas, and red food coloring for one, and blue food coloring for the other. Once they're dry lay the red pasta on top of the red dough, and the blue pasta on top of the blue dough. I overlapped into the white a bit, because that's the look I liked!