C loves play dough. It’s one material that he will play with for extensive amounts of time. I try to incorporate it into our play invitations whenever I can. Today’s invitation is simple but captivating and great for working on those fine motor skills. We used playdough, some larger wooden stringing beads, & pipecleaners. That’s it! I set it all out for him and let him create.
There are multiple ways your little one might play with something like this. Mr. C started by just squishing beads into the play dough. After he played that way for awhile I stuck a pipe cleaner in to help spark some other ideas. Before long he was stringing beads on the pipe cleaners.
Then his imagination kicked in and he made a “spaceman” …his word…. It rather looks like a spaceman doesn’t it?
An activity like this is also a good opportunity for sneaking in a little counting practice and color sorting. I purposely put out 6 beads of each color and set them up on a tray that would allow for color sorting. C wasn’t really in the mood to color sort but when it came time to pick up I simply asked him to put the beads back where they belong and sure enough he put them all back in their appropriate color spot. Haha… color sorting practice 😉
I really like this idea….now tomorrows task is to find beads and pipe cleaners!