Who doesn’t love a bit of playdough play? It’s squishy, it’s squashy but most of all it’s fun!

During these challenging times playdough can be the  perfect play experience to calm your child from noisy play into quiet time,

Here are some other ways that playdough exploration can develop your child’s learning……

• Develops Fine Motor Control- Before they learn to write, children need to develop their finger muscles, strength  and control. During playdough play, children will mould, flatten , squish pinch, break and roll the playdough, all the while developing finger muscles they need to help them hold a pencil correctly.
• Develops vocabulary-As your child creates and explores with the playdough, they will form new ideas and concepts. Through  this process they will learn new words such as squeeze, roll, flatten etc as well as words describing what they are doing.
• Encourages Creativity –Playdough is a blank canvas waiting to be moulded into  a unique  creation by your child. Exploring playdough will encourage your child’s creativity as they mould and create from an image they hold mentally into a masterpiece.
• Numeracy Skills-Following a playdough recipe where your child will measure out the correct amount of ingredients is the perfect opportunity for them to develop their counting and measuring skills.

Playdough is very easy to make! Below I have included a link for some easy non cook playdough.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/playdough-recipe

Changing the texture or adding different smells to can enhance the sensory experience for your child. Here are some ideas…

Adding some herbs and spices

https://craftulate.com/homemade-herb-and-spice-play-dough/

Adding some shaving foam and corn starch to make some foam dough

http://earlylearning.momtrusted.com/2013/05/foam-dough-shaving-cream-corn-starch/

Our children at Cart Mill love when we add different resources to their playdough to explore with. Here are some ‘playdough invitations’ to play…..

Adding different household objects to imprint into the playdough is a great way to explore pattern and texture.

 

Adding some nature to explore. Flowers have the added bonus of making your playdough smell nice!

Getting creative by adding marker pens….

As always please keep in mind any allergies your child has when  making additions to your playdough fun.

Please share with us any fun playdough experiences you have done via our twitter page.