[beAbU]

You can make play dough at home by cooking a flour and water mixture till it thickens up, add lots of salt (to discourage eating) and colouring to taste.

When I was a child my mom would cook me a fresh batch every month or so during my frequent clay phases.

[cptskippy]

Polymer clay and modeling clay have very different properties compared to play dough. Play dough is something that kids grow out of in the first year or two of Elementary school.

[yojo]

Yep, my kid is into making very detailed little animal sculpts that endure. Playdough fails on both of those dimensions. We've switched to air dry clay (Crayola Model Magic), which is closer to the polymer clay, but still doesn't work quite as well for fine-detail, and is far less durable.

[beedeebeedee]

You can make modeling clay with dry clay and mineral oil (with some glycerin)

[yojo]

Do you have a recipe or resource you can point me to? I'd love to try it.

[beedeebeedee]

I don't sadly. I did it empirically (my oil-based modeling clay would separate and become hard, so I started heating it and adding oil, and then started making new modeling clay from scratch). I used clay powder, but I just looked at some websites for making homemade modeling clay and they use calcium carbonate or talc, so I'm not sure what to suggest. My clay turned out fine (but theirs might be better).