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

Have Fun With Playdough This Easter Holidays!

I use playdough all the time with young kids to support communication development.  It's a great activity to get communication happening and there's lots kids can learn through playdough!

Having a set of good cookie or playdough cutters is great for modelling lots of different vocabulary targets (e.g. house, butterfly, plane) and working on early categorisation skills (e.g. Lets put all the vehicles over here and all the animals over here).  Playdough play is also great for encouraging use of action words (e.g. cutting, pushing, rolling) and early concept words (e.g. big/little, long/short - "I've rolled a big ball.  Your ball is li____?", "My snake is long, your snake is sh____.").  You can use playdough for making many different shapes and objects to talk about such as making a persons body or face out of playdough (e.g. model the names of different body parts as you talk about what you are making, such as "To make a person we need a body, head, legs, and arms. What else do we need?").  Try making different animals such as a snake for modelling different animal noises and early sound play (e.g. "Snake says SSSsssss"). 

​Playdough is a great sensory activity and can also be used to encourage development of early social skills such as turn taking, joint attention, sharing, making a choice, requesting, asking for help.  It's a great activity to keep young kids occupied on a play date too.  They love to get in and help make it and see the colours go through the dough.  I like to make my own playdough for peace of mind that if they decide to taste it (lets face it, most kids give it a taste test at some stage) there aren't any hidden nasties.

Joan's Playdough Recipe:

This is my friend Joan's playdough recipe. 
3 cups plain flour
​1 cup salt
3 tablespoons of Cream of Tartar
​4 tablespoons oil
Mix together, add 3 cups boiling water and food colouring, mix like mad until mixture is smooth.
​When combined turn out onto bench (sprinkled with flour), knead adding additional flour as needed until mixture loses any sticky quality. 
​

What playdough Easter Creations will you create this Easter?

Sarah Creagh
​Speech Pathologist

Children's Speech Pathology - supporting children to maximise their development and learning!