Dino Playdough – What do kids Learn from Playdough?
Hardly a week goes by without playdough making an appearance at our house. Morgan just loves playdough and while the girls may groan and roll their eyes when I get it out, they almost always end up playing with it for hours as well!
Yesterday we decided on dinosaurs to go with the playdough. Dinosaurs and ‘sticks and other good stuff’ – which translates to a few slices of silver birch and some of our stick blocks. Simple, easy but lots of fun!
While the kids are busy using their imaginations and creating ‘dino world’ together they are, of course, working on social skills, sharing, negotiating and using their language skills but that’s not all. Rolling, pinching and manipulating the dough is working the small muscles in their hands and forearms, developing and practising pre-writing movements and skills. They are using problems solving skills to work out how big a piece of playdough is needed to make the sticks stand up right and how heavy the piece at the top of the ‘tree’ can be before it falls. They are experimenting with shape, weight, volume and countless other maths concepts.
A humble blob of playdough offers so many opportunities for play and learning. When was the last time you got out some playdough? It’s kind of fun for adults too!
Joining in It’s Play Time with Quirky Momma this week :)
Yay for playdough! And snap – we made some chocolate playdough today and the kids ‘baked’ cupcakes. I think playdough is one of the all time great activities, and really good for after school play when the kids need something fun and interesting but also something to help them wind down.
Play dough is the cornerstone of my whole independent play plan. She loves to play with it with dinosaurs – make footprints or sometimes she takes it into her kitchen to do baking. Sure, occasionally I end up with play dough wedged somewhere it most certainly shouldn’t be, but it’s definitely worth it for all the fun she has.
that looks grand! think i need to mix me a batch up whilst here – what recipe do you use?
x
today. we made noodles for lunch. pink noodles. yum!
we haven’t made playdough for ages! and I’d never thought to add animals to the play, definately on our summer holiday ideas list.
My little one’s just starting to get into it – your post gives me new ideas!
Funny you should say that about adults – I actually used to do a play dough version of pictionary with my adult ESL students and it was always a hit!!
This looks like so much fun!
Not a week goes by without play dough in our house too! I can almost make it with my eyes closed :)
We love play dough! My kids have lots of cookie cutters, plates, and extras like scissors and knives to create. Mostly they “bake” but I’d love to suggest a dino world after reading this. Thanks!
We did this whole playdough thing with dinosaurs and sticks and it was the most amazing success with my 4 year old twins. There were footprints being made, playdough clothes for dinosaurs (of course), caves and woods. Fab. Thanks so much for this idea.
I actually got some more playdoh recently. We haven’t started playing at all with it yet but I just keep buying it because I want to play with it. Planning to get it out one day soon for the twin 18 month olds – should be lots of fun (for them and me!!)