5 Ways to Play With Playdough

What child doesn’t own a massive box of playdough! Zac has every colour in the rainbow – and more. We play with it quite regularly, but I was finding he was getting bored quickly. So I thought up some different ways we can play with playdough to make it fun again!

Here are a few different activities using playdough:

Making Playdough Dinosaur Fossils

Zac loved this activity. We rolled out the playdough and then got some of his dinosaur figures and pressed them in to make an imprint. We used all different types of dinosaurs and even some trees! You can use the whole dinosaur figure or just their feet to make footprints. You can also turn it into a “puzzle” activity and ask them to match up the correct dinosaur figure to the fossil. For older children you could ask them to name the dinosaurs from their fossils.

The fun doesn’t have to stop at dinosaurs! Zac Is obsessed with Toy Story so we also used some of these figures to create lots of other imprints.

Making Track Prints

Zac is obsessed with all things that move – if they have wheels then it is a winner! This activity was so quick and simple. I just roller out some different coloured play doughs (I tried to use quite earthy colours – green, brown, orange and yellow), and then all Zac had to do was get all of the different vehicles and roll them over the playdough to make track prints! We used some diggers, trains and cars. You can continue the fun and make it a learning activity by asking them to match up the vehicles to the correct track/tyre prints!

Colour Sorting with Playdough

We have been working on identifying and sorting colours recently, so I thought I would try and set up a colour sorting activity using his play dough. To create the activity I used one of his toy saucepans and some different coloured silicone cake cases, but you could use any type of coloured containers. I then just rolled up lots of bolls using the different coloured play doughs and then he sorted them into the correct coloured cupcake cases!

Baking with Playdough

After using the cupcake cases for the colour sorting activity I had the idea that we could set up a mini bakery! We made lots of pretend cupcakes and cookies using the playdough. I made large balls to sit inside the cupcake cases to make the “cake” and then we rolle out thin pieces of different coloured playdough’s and laid then over the top to make the icing. Zac loved cutting out lots of different little shapes to decorate the top of them.

Playdough and Spaghetti Threading

I saw this idea on Pinterest and had to give it a go! The playdough isn’t really the main element of this activity but is used in the set up. I used playdough to make a solid base which I could then stick some spaghetti sticks into. I then gave Zac some cheerio’s for him to thread onto the different sticks. It is a great activity for developing hand eye coordination and fine motor skills. You could enhance the learning aspect further by turning it into a counting activity and setting challenged for how many cheerio’s need to be on each stick!

So those of my 5 favourite activities we have tried using playdough! There are plenty of other ideas on Pinterest (Check out my Playdough Pinterest Board). If you try any of these don’t forget to tag my blog or Instagram.

Take a look at some more of our Toddler Friendly Activities HERE

Thanks for reading!