Play dough is an amazing tool that provides many learning opportunities for children. Have a go at making your own at home with a few store cupboard staples.

Benefits of play dough:

Enhances fine motor skills:

When your child squishes, rolls, flattens, shapes, scores or cuts play dough, they develop and strengthen hand muscles. The strengthened hand muscles will help improve fine motor skills of your child

Improves pre-writing skills:

When your child plays with play dough, their pincer grip (the squeezing of pointer finger and thumb to grasp an object) improves. An improved pincer grip enhances your child’s pre-writing skills
Creativity and imagination
Play-dough provides your child with unlimited possibilities of moulding the dough into food, animals, decorations, flowers etc. Thereby, it encourages your child to use his imagination and inspires his creativity. If your child uses various shapes, rolling pins and other tools while playing with play dough it further improves his creative imagination.

Calming effect:

Is your child often restless and finds it difficult to express his emotions? Give him some play dough to play. Sitting at one place and squishing and squashing of play dough will have a very calming and soothing effect on him. It will also provide him with great option to express his emotions.

Develops hand – eye coordination:

Using a variety of shapes and rolling pins while playing with play-dough will improve your child’s hand-eye-coordination

Social skills:

When your child plays with play-dough along with other siblings or you they will interact, talk, discuss problems and find solutions to creating great works of art and craft with play dough. Thus, playing with play dough will enhance your child’s social skills
Increases curiosity and knowledge
When your child mixes 2 different coloured doughs together and discovers a new colour or when they learn to mould play dough in different shapes, it encourages their curiosity, they will ask various questions which would help increase their knowledge.

Above all else have fun!!

You can send any pictures of your child enjoying this suggested activity to [email protected] we would love to see them and of course if your happy for me to I can also share them on the site for all of families to see.

Take Care and Stay Safe
Sharon x