One of our favourite rainy day sensory activities – but not just indoors – we take Play dough outdoors too – in the mud kitchen, in my handbag for a meal out or holiday! Playdough offers a time for calm, quiet, mindful time and can also be a great collaborative activity. Here we share 8 benefits of play dough along with a gallery of activity ideas below.
Playdough offers numerous benefits, including:
1. Creativity and Imagination: Playdough fosters imaginative play, allowing children to create anything they can imagine, which helps develop creativity and problem-solving skills. Try Play dough cupcakes with sprinkles and candles. Make creatures with sticks and natural treasures, make dough faces, snakes. Use cookie cutters for making fun shapes to decorate, use rollers and play dough tools.
2. Fine Motor Skills: Manipulating the dough by rolling, squeezing, and shaping it helps improve hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
3. Sensory Stimulation: The tactile experience of playing with playdough stimulates the senses, including touch and smell, which can be calming and therapeutic.
4. Language Development: Playdough play often involves storytelling and role-playing, promoting language development and communication skills.
5. Social Skills: Collaborative play with others encourages sharing, taking turns, and cooperation, promoting social skills and empathy. Making dough together with a friend is lots of fun. Learning to make dough here with a friend @mama.bodhi.River
6. Math and Science Concepts: Children can explore basic math concepts when making their own dough. Measuring, counting, mixing, and experimenting with textures, colours and scents. They can also learn about cause and effect, states of matter, and other scientific principles.
7. Quiet mindfulness time: Playdough is ideal for some quiet, mindful time. A true sensory tool for simple movements, rolling, squishing. Why not enhance the dough with the addition of scent such as lavender?
8. Pattern making and early mark making skills: Roll playdough out for a larger surface area to print patterns. Items as simple as a fork, lego, small world animal footprints. Use a stick to mark make in the dough. We particularly love the playdough accessories and rollers from Yellow Door Education.
Overall, play dough is a versatile and beneficial tool for children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development.
Playdough activity ideas gallery:
Lottie Makes 