7 Easy Steps to Make a Salt Dough Cell Model
Looking for a fun, easy way to make a cell model? You’ve probably got all that you need for this salt dough cell model sitting right in your pantry!
There are so many easy ways to make a cell model. We’ve shared a few of our favorites like the cake cell model and the pizza cell, but maybe you need a more permanent or durable option for carting to co-op or displaying at the homeschool group science fair.
We’ve got you covered! Check out these easy steps for making a salt dough cell model!
One of my favorite things about making salt dough is that I usually have the ingredients sitting in my pantry. You use three simple ingredients – salt, flour, and water – to make a dough the consistency of Play-Doh. Then, you start creating!
You can make all kinds of things using salt dough, from salt dough maps to Christmas ornaments. Or cell models! We chose to make an animal cell this go around, but a plant cell would be just as easy.
What You Need
As I said, you likely have all the ingredients in your pantry. All it takes is flour, salt, and water. I also recommend:
- A sturdy piece of cardboard for a base – Pizza boxes work great or you can just cut one side off of the gazillion Amazon boxes you’ve probably got sitting around your house. {ahem}
- Acrylic paint
- Paint brushes
- A labeled illustration of an animal or plant cell
- Toothpicks and mailing labels to create flag labels
Steps to Make a Salt Dough Cell
The first part of this project is easy enough for even your littles to get in on the fun. Then, you can give them a bit of dough to play with while the older siblings craft the cell’s organelles.
Step 1
Make the dough. Mix equal parts of flour and salt. You’ll probably only need two cups or so for this project. One 26-ounce carton of salt contains about two cups of salt.
Add enough water to the flour mixture to create a smooth dough. It might be slightly sticky, but if it’s more than just slightly, add a bit more flour and salt.
Step 2
Use about half of the dough to shape the cell onto your cardboard base – round for an animal cell or rectangular for a plant cell.
Use your fingers to pinch up an edge all the way around the cell to represent the cell wall.
Step 3
Use the remaining dough to shape and form the cell’s organelles. We debated whether or not to bake them separately so that they could be removed, but ultimately decided to make the finished project all one piece. It was easier to form the more delicate smaller pieces that way and we didn’t have to worry about losing them. However, the choice is yours!
Some textbooks or printables are more detailed than others, but the organelles we included were:
- Nucleus
- Mitochondria
- Smooth endoplasmic reticulum
- Rough endoplasmic reticulum
- Vacuoles
- Ribosomes
- Golgi apparatus
We tried to make our models as close to the images in our labeled drawing as possible, but sculptors we are not.
Step 4
Add toothpicks for the flag labels. You won’t be able to stick the toothpicks into the salt dough once it hardens, so do that now, but wait to add the labels until you’re finished.
Step 5
Let the salt dough dry. How you complete this step depends on how much time you have. I think the best way is probably to let the dough air dry or, if the weather permits, leave it in the sun for a day or two.
However, if you’re in a hurry like we were (because someone may or may not have put off the project until the last minute, ahem), you can bake it in the oven. Just be sure to supervise this step carefully since it will require putting the salt dough cell into the oven on its cardboard base.
We put the base on a baking sheet, placed it in the oven, and heated the oven to 250°. I set a timer to check it every 15 minutes until it was complete. It takes about an hour and a half up to three hours depending on how thick your project is.
Step 6
Paint your model. I recommend acrylic paint, which has always performed well on salt dough for us.
Step 7
Add your flag labels. I usually use a Sharpie to write out the organelle names on self-adhesive mailing labels and attach those to the toothpicks.
Voila! There you have a simple, inexpensive, durable salt dough cell model!
Pair it with this nifty 3D plant cell diorama for even more fun and review. Trust me, the more your kids (and you!) hear the names of cell organelles, talk about their roles in the cell, and label them, the more they’re going to stick in their brains (and yours)!
And that’s what we want – gaining true understanding through interactive, hands-on learning activities.