A couple of weeks ago, T and I did a few activities around the theme of the Arctic. Playdough is always a popular choice of activity in our house and I love that it keeps both children entertained in different ways. I decided I would put together an Arctic Playdough invitation for them.
When it comes to playdough, I like to change things up a bit and so I don’t always put out the same things for them to use. As well as traditional playdough tools such as cutters and a rolling pin, we often use Loose Parts in our play. We have used things such as: natural objects; toy animals; matchsticks; lolly sticks; strings of beads; glass gems; body parts from Mr Potato Head; cupcake cases; candles; sequins; whole spices – as you can see, there is a wealth of options! Choosing different objects to use in their play inspires their imagination and is a catalyst for creativity.
For the Arctic Playdough, I added blue food colouring and a generous amount of silver glitter! As well as the dough, I put out:
- A collection of Arctic animals
- Blue and green glass gems
- Shells
- Some pieces of fir I’d saved from our Christmas tree
- Wooden stamps
- Strings of silver beads
T spent about an hour and a half completely absorbed in storytelling. She started off making an island and rescuing lots of the animals, and then chose to marry two of the animals and spent a long time building and decorating a space for the ceremony. She was talking all the while to herself, totally engrossed in her play, and bringing in some of the knowledge she’d acquired while learning about the Arctic.
For A, the activity was all about exploring and experimenting! Playdough is a great fine motor activity, as he spend a lot of time squashing, squeezing, pressing, and picking up small objects. He was also pushing things in to the dough and looking at the prints he had made when he took them away (encouraged by his big sister, who adores being his teacher!)
For more invitations to play using playdough, have a look at some of these other ideas!
