We love all things messy at Kidunk and playdough is no exception, especially when you make it yourself – who knew it could be so easy! It’s a brilliant activity that will teach the kids about science and maths as they measure out the ingredients and watch the changing shape and consistency of the dough…
These three recipes all have their own unique benefit from calming and sensory, to introducing colour mixing and exploring!
Making the basic dough…
- 1 cup of plain flour
- Half a cup of Salt
- Half a cup of Water
- 1Tbsp of Veg Oil
Mix together the flour and salt, leave to one side, combine the water and oil into a cup and then mix this with the dry mixture for a few minutes and then knead for a further five minutes.
TIP: So that your play dough keeps nice and moist keep in an airtight container.
Sensory Play dough
- Your favourite essential oils
Once you have made your dough – divide into three or four blobs. Add five drops of a different essential oil to each blob and kneed for a few minutes until combined. Add food colouring too if you like so that each portion of playdough smells and looks different.
Try a relaxing oil such as lavender and then perhaps peppermint or lemon and ask the children to describe the different smells.
Did you know, play dough is therapeutic and calming, it can be a perfect tool to use to encourage children to focus and extend their concentration span.
Simple colour mixing
- Red, Blue and Yellow food colouring
Make your dough, split into three portions and add a different primary food colouring to each one. Then take a piece from red and a piece from the yellow, knead together and watch the colour change, it should change to orange! Blue and yellow will make Green, Red and black will make Brown.
Did you know, that by getting your child to roll the dough in small ten pence sized balls with their thumb and fingers they are working on strengthen the muscles that they use to write and colour with a pencil or crayon. This is very important for them to do as early as possible and a great one to build up muscle strength in children with Dyspraxia.
Let’s get exploring and investigate
- Lots of small items!
Prepare a large amount of dough and without the children seeing hide things with in the dough, put in simple things like a Lego block, a small car, sticks, pebbles, pretend jewels, toy animals and people and anything else you can hide, then simply have some fun and ask the children to see how many things they can find. They will have to get stuck in and feel around.
Maybe write down a list of things hidden, and the children can tick off when they find them.
Did you Know This activity will help numeracy, promotes good social skills if they are working with a parent or another child.