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It is no secret that we love all things playdough related in our house. I am forever looking for things Molly can you that she will really enjoy. Playing with playdough has ALWAYS been a huge hit with Molly. I have managed to make quite a few batches myself after experimenting. However, Dough Animals homemade playdough is a whole new level of amazing. It’s soft, I mean really soft. It’s not sticky in any way, and each colour has its own scent – strawberries, apples, bubblegum! yum.
We were kindly sent the unicorn dough which is blue and white with copious amounts of sparkles! They also sent the rainbow box, which has mini pots of different coloured playdough, and a pot of craft items such as pipe cleaners, beads, pom poms and little eyes! They also sell a range of tools such as textured/patterned rolling pins, and wooden hammers. Perfect for mark making!⠀
Molly really enjoys playing with these. She is always asking for playdough and will sit there for hours making all sorts of things! Which is fine by me, because playing with playdough brings so many benefits to a child’s development!
Playdough can help Fine Motor Development.
The malleable properties of playdough make it fun for investigation and exploration. It also secretly builds up strength in all the tiny hand muscles, getting them ready for pencil and scissor control later on in life. Poking in objects, pulling them out again not only strengthens hand muscles, but it also helps develop co-ordination.
Dough Animals Rainbow box came with a little tub full of pipe cleaners, beads, pom poms – all items that are fantastic at helping to develop your child’s co-ordination whilst playing.
As part of simple, tactile play it can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, flattened, chopped, cut, scored, raked, punctured, poked and shredded! Each one of these different actions aids fine motor development in a different way, not to mention hand-eye coordination and general concentration. I also keep a drawer where playdough items live. There are wooden letters and all the tools/cutters we have, so they are all ready to go when needed.
Having a wide range of additional extras to use while playing extends the investigation and play possibilities endlessly. Using the wooden letters we have has defiantly helped with letter recognition. We have also been incorporating nature into our playdough set ups. Providing objects from nature with a wide range of textures, colours and shapes, children can have multi-sensory experiences and engage with the world around them in a whole new way.
Imagination and Creativity.
As soon as you introduce open ended play items to add to the mix, play dough becomes the perfect medium for numerous types of imaginative play, and can represent so many things in a child’s eyes. Molly likes to create faces, and little monsters that she thinks are “soooo cute”. They each end up having voices and suddenly she is in a whole world of her own.
The playdough has turned into a number of different things. Pizza’s, cakes, hats, spaghetti, water, lollipops, I kid you not, she even made Mummy Daddy and Evie. The possibilities are endless!
Math and Literacy Skills
Playdough can also be used as a fantastic way to practice letter and number recognition. Children can form letters of the alphabet, use wooden letters/numbers like we have and press them into the dough to leave imprints. They can spell out their own name, create 2D and 3D shapes, compare lengths/thicknesses/weights, and many more ideas too!
These are just a few reasons playdough can benefit your tiny humans. We love our dough from Dough Animal and plan to make a huge order in the next coming weeks! You can find them over on Instgram as well as on their website!
