The World of Eric Carle Super Dough

One of our favorite children’s authors, Eric Carle, is known for his beautiful colors and beloved characters that are featured in his books. Kids Preferred is bringing these characters to life for children with their new clay compound, Super Dough. If your child loves hands-on play and creating/sculpting/molding, this is a great new product to check out!

The colorful Super Dough is non-toxic and air-dries so you don’t have to worry about baking or firing your little one’s creations in the oven. The kit we received contained 13 different colors of dough (divided into separate containers and stored in a convenient vinyl zipper bag) along with a plastic “safety” molding knife. The dough is marketed for ages 3+, but since it is non-toxic, I let my 2-year-old play along as well as we opened and tried it out.  

Our first reaction was that it smelled a bit funny, but felt just like expected (clay-ish). It is lightweight, easy to mold, and not at all sticky. The kids loved all the color options!  

The kit comes with pictures of all the Eric Carle characters, providing suggestions of what to sculpt. My 5-year-old loves to follow instructions and copy diagrams/illustrations vice free form creating, so he was thrilled and got right to work. We made Carle’s Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Elephant and Grouchy Ladybug.  

After the creations were made, we put them in a safe place (away from the 2-year-old) and let them dry overnight. We were very happy to find them nice and hard the next morning. It is also easy to clean up any messes, as you can just let it harden and then sweep it away. There was plenty left over, so if your child is more toward the creative side, they can certainly make anything they imagine with the 13 colors.

While we loved having all the options to create, I was pleased to see that you can buy the dough for just one character if your child is into a specific Eric Carle story, or you just want a less expensive option. Each of the above mentioned characters that we created are available as single sets and come with just the colors needed to create a specific character. The kits would make a really cute gift, either alone or as an addition to an Eric Carle story book. The Super Dough collection also includes a cute display globe for children to store and showcase their creations, safe from harm of pets and younger children.

After a few days of looking at our creations, my 5-year-old was interested in starting again. The Super Dough instructions say it is completely reusable, just to add water. This sounded simple, but took a long time to reconstitute the clay – it is not an instant process by any means. (I understood this, but it did not go over as well with an impatient kindergartener!) All said, this is another great addition to our arts and crafts bin, and we look forward to creating with it again soon.

The World of Eric Carle Super Dough

Manufactured by Kids Preferred, LLC

Available at Walmart, Amazon (www.Amazon.com), and specialty toy stores

Super Dough set of 13: $19.99

Ease of Use: 5

Appealed to children: 5

Kept child(ren)’s interest: 3

Messy: No

Other materials required: No

I would purchase this for my family: Yes

I would purchase this as a gift: Yes

Overall rating: 4

All ratings on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being highest.

Meet the Reviewer!

Christy Petrak is a systems engineer currently taking a leave of absence to raise her two children, Thomas (5 years) and Eliza (2 years). She enjoys spending time with her family, swimming and baking/decorating cupcakes.

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