Number 3 on My Play, Chat, Learn List: Have Fun With Playdough!

Have Fun With Playdough over the Easter Break.

Playdough is one of my favourite activities to use with young kids.  It's a great activity to get communication happening. Having a good set of cookie or playdough cutters is essential.  It provides opportunity for targeting lots of early vocabulary (e.g. house, butterfly, plane), early categorisation skills (e.g. put all the 'animals' over here and all the 'transportation' over here), and lots of action words (e.g. cutting, rolling, pushing) which are essential for children to know so they can learn how to combine words to start to make sentences.  You can use playdough to model lots of early concept words too (e.g. big/little, long/short - e.g. I've made a big ball.  Is your ball big or little?, My snake is long but your snake is short.).  You can make lots of different shapes and objects out of playdough - make a persons body to work on teaching body parts, make different animals such as a snake and talk about the sounds they make (e.g. Snake says 'SSSssssss').  Playdough is also great for sensory development and working on early social skills such as turn taking, joint attention, making a choice, and sharing.  A great activity for keeping kids amused during a playdate!  Kids also love to get involved when making the playdough and seeing the colours mix through as it's kneaded.
​I like to make my own playdough so I have peace of mind there are no hidden nasties in it if a child decides it's worth tasting.  Lets face it, most children at some stage will give it a tasted test.
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​Here's my friend Joan's playdough recipe that I use:
​3 Cups plain flour
1 Cup salt
​3 Tablespoons of cream of tartar
​4 Tablespoons Oil
​Mix together, add food colouring and 3 cups of boiling water, mix like mad.
When combined turn out onto bench and knead.  Keep in fridge in a sealed plastic bag or container.
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Please send me any photos of your fabulous playdough creations over the Easter Holidays that you're happy for me to share as I'd love to add them to my post.

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Sarah Creagh
​Speech Pathologist

Children's Speech Pathologist - Supporting Children to Reach Their Maximum Potential!