The Wonder of Playdough

Play dough is a fabulous thing.  Buy it or make it, roll it or squash it, it is a toy and a tool that can be used for a lot more than just making pretend tacos.  Playdough can be a great way to enhance your child's learning in a lot of different area.  It is a great way to build hand strength and small motor skills.

There are a lot of different ways to learn, through listening, speaking, creating, music, physical movement, etc.  Anytime that children can use two or more different ways to learn an idea, the more quickly and more permanently the information will stick.  Think about how often we use music or hand motions to memorize something.  We are using two different avenues to get the info into our brain, and it works.

So having your child use play dough is a  great way to learn and practice new skills.  Here are some practical ideas that you might like to use with your kids:

Language and Literacy:
Use the play dough to build letters and familiar words.  If your child has trouble rolling and creating the necessary shapes, you can build the parts for them and have them put the pieces together like a puzzle.

Make capital letters and lower case in different colors.

Math:
Make chocolate chip cookies and count how many chips each cookie has.

Make a pizza for everyone in your family.  How many will you need?

Cut your pizza in half to introduce fractions.

Make numbers out of the play dough.  Make small balls of play dough to match the numbers.

Science:

Make familiar bugs.  How many body parts does a spider have?  How many legs?  How about an ant?

We use the top of a large tupperware tub for our workspace.  Even Jack joins in the fun making play dough soup (taste testing and all).

Here is a good recipe for home made play dough.  

Cooked Playdough (flour and salt)

3 cups flour

1.5 cups salt

6 tsp cream of tarter

3 tbsp oil

3 cups water

Dissolve salt in the water. Pour all ingredients into a large pot.  Stir constantly over medium heat until a ball forms by pulling away from the sides.  Knead the dough mixture until the texture matches play dough (1-2 minutes).  Store in a plastic container.