Making and playing with playdough at home can be an educational experience for your child.

While playing with your child, their LANGUAGE skills can be expanded if you try to introduce a new term whenever you play together. Terms such as roll, pat, squeeze, pinch, poke, pull, bang, cut, mix, twist, coil and spiral can be used. You could also make a few objects from a Nursery Rhyme and then sing the song.

Their CO-ORDINATION will also improve by rolling snakes with the palm of the hand and, as their co-ordination improves, by using a rolling pin. They can coil the snakes into a spiral or cut them up with a toy knife. They can use the dough to cut out shapes or squeeze the dough through a Spaghetti maker.  

MATHS concepts can be developed with your child by making and copying patterns with cut-out dough, counting how many are made or counting the number of candles on the birthday cake. Colours can be talked about when matching the correct colour to the container in packing up time. Terms such as small, long, short, fat and thin can be used. Shapes can be discussed when they can make square fences for animals, round or circular pools for ducks, oblong shapes for trains, triangles for sandwiches  and diamonds for Twinkle Twinkle Little  Star.   

IMAGINATIVE PLAY can be developed by making the small, middle-size or large beds and bowls for the Three Bears, making animals for the zoo or any characters from their favourite books.

Why not use the Kobba Baking Set for the ultimate in playdough fun! 

Be aware of always looking for ways in everyday activities and play situations to develop your child's learning in the most natural and fun way as possible. By continually introducing them to new word, concepts and experiences their overall development will be greatly enhanced.

PLAYDOUGH RECIPE

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons cooking oil

4 tablespoons crème of tartar

1 cup salt

2 cups water

Food colouring

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and stir over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until mixture congeals.

This article was written by the Wooden Toy Store Team. Please feel free to use it in it's entirety with the inclusion of the Wooden Toy Store as the author and a link to www.woodentoystore.co.nz