Play dough is a staple material for play at our house and as we use it very often, it's much more economical to make it ourselves then to buy it. 

We have tried many, many different play dough recipes over the years but our favourite, and the one we always came back to was this no-cook recipe from the Imagination Tree. They have a secret ingredient they add for extra shine so be sure to check it out. 

We've modified the method slightly over time to make it so super easy that the kids could make it with you.

With playdough this soft, silky, quick and easy to make, you'll never need to buy playdough again.

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Play dough is a wonderful sensory experience for children and one that most will thoroughly enjoy.

Today we're combining a couple of our favourite tactile materials 

with an easy way to practice Name Recognition, Letters and Spelling. 

This activity is also great for promoting fine motor skills and can also be used to focus

on colours and patterns.

Ages: 2-6+

(Maddie is currently 3.5. See the Handy Tips at the bottom of the post to either Simplify or Extend this activity)

Materials: Playdough, Pompoms, Rolling Pin and Pencil

Roll out the playdough and using the pencil, write in your child's name

Start covering the lines with pompoms to show your child what to do. We used mini pompoms here.

Children place the pompoms to cover the lines to spell out their name using their pincer grip. 

Add tweezers for an added challenge.

Pom-pom name. Discuss the letters and order. 

Use to practice single letters

Using larger pompoms

Handy Tips:

- To simplify this activity, start with single letters, such as the first letter of your child's name. Using larger pompoms will be easier for less advanced fine motor skills as they are easier to grab. When teaching single letters try to start with letters that have meaning to them (like the first letter of their name) and letters that generally have only 1 sound (eg S, M, F etc)

- To extend this activity, have your child do the writing in the play dough with the pencil. You could always do a very faint outline and have your child trace over the top to make the lines themselves if they're not confident at letter formation

- To begin again, simply scrunch the dough back into a ball and re-roll out.

- Use this same idea for teaching sight words or numbers

- Mix it up by providing different materials to cover the lines with such as beans or beads etc.

- Include further areas of learning by talking about and focusing on covering each letter with a particular colour or by encouraging simple patterns.

Want more ideas for Learning Letters?

Try our most popular and comprehensive post ever on the subject: The A-Z of Learning Letters. 90+ Activities

or, try making some fun Alphabet Goo!

How about some different fun Learning with Playdough?

Our Playdough Imprints. Texture and Pattern Exploration activity was really fun

or, how about this fun Invitation to Play with playdough and some other materials?

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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What a delight it is to introduce you to a favourite person and blog of mine, Andie from Crayon Freckles. Today Andie is sharing a special super fun, monsterific post just for the Learn with Play at home readers. Be sure to pop on over to Andie's blog if you haven't already and check out her other fun activities and interesting parenting articles. Enjoy! Debs :)

During a recent unit on space, my son, Bear, (3.5 yrs) expressed an interest in space monsters.  I try to follow his interests when I plan activities.  So we did a few activities based on these fun little creatures.

The first was a math activity to practice one-to-one correspondence, or assigning one number per object.  We had some flashcards with little furry monsters on them that we used.  Using clothespins, Bear "smushed" the space monsters as he counted them. 

once they were all covered, he practiced writing the number.

After that, we moved onto a fun sensory activity...making playdoh space monsters.  We got out the playdoh and some random craft items like: googly eyes, pipe cleaners, milk caps, pony beads, etc. 

These two activities gave us over an hour of fun that was out of this world (sorry, I had to do it!). 

Andie Jaye is a former preschool teacher turned SAHM of two kiddos. Her blog, Crayon Freckles, is an eclectic mix of play, art, and learning activities. Mingled in are her perspectives on being a crunchy momma, having a long-haired hippy boy and using follow-your-gut parenting. See more of Andie on Crayon Freckles' Facebook page or at Pinterest.

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So, you know all those little bits of dried up play dough that you are inevitably left with over time? Well, previously we've always just thrown them out, but today I thought that we could use them in an Invitation to Play and Explore

An invitation to play and explore is an activity where you've intentionally set out specific materials but left it up to the child to take the activity where they want to. It's an open-ended activity with no set outcome at the end.

This is what I set up for her to explore:

 A container of dried play bough bits, water in a squirter, a container with lid, an open container and a spoon

I thought she'd go for the water bottle first but it was all about transferring the dried play dough from one dish to another with the spoon.

She really loved squirting the water on the play dough

It didn't take much water for it to start feeling quite soft again. Slimy too!

Quite the sensory experience

There was one piece that would not soften regardless of how much she soaked it.

It was much harder than the other pieces and we concluded it must have been left out to dry for much longer than the rest.

She remember there was another container. Time to pour it all in there.

Mixing and Stirring and Watching

That right, and Shaking!

And Squeezing!

And Decanting.

The more water, the stickier it got! Ewwwww. Fun!

Handy Tips:

- The great thing about an open-ended invitation to play and explore is that you don't need to really simplify it for younger children. You can provide the same materials and let them explore within their own abilities.

- Extend this activity by offering a challenge once they've explored all they can. An example might be to challenge them to try and make the play dough feel like new/fresh play dough again. How could this be done? Talk about the difference between solids and liquids etc.

- I provided the water in a spray bottle to encourage my daughter to add the water more slowly. Had I given her a little jug of water it would have all been poured in at the very beginning and she would not have seen or experienced the play dough going through as many stages as she did. If you don't have a water bottle though, a small jug or bottle of water is fine.

- Talk to your child about what they are experiencing in order to develop their cognitive skills (thinking) and language development. Not to forget the important bonding that takes place between you both.

- Ask your child questions about what they are experiencing. Eg. "What does the play dough feel like now?" "What do you think it will feel like if you add more water?" etc.

- Mix it up by providing the same materials but also with a small tub of plain flour. See what happens!

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Click here to read this book

This week the theme of the Memetales Readathon is Friendship. We read all of the free friendship themed books this week and then, inspired by one of the stories, "Lott's Tea Party" by Jane Marshall, we decided to host our own Tea Party.






This activity was fabulous for developing fine motor skills, encouraging creativity, discussing friendship, being exposed to Early Literacy and imaginative play.

The set up invitation to play.

As "Lott's Tea Party" was a book of action words, I included a few appropriate action words.

We didn't put a major focus on this. We read them, discussed them a little and then just left them on the table to be seen while playing.

Busy 'making' and 'preparing' the food for the tea party. 

I used 'make' as a basic word for Milly and 'prepare' to work on broadening vocabulary.

 Done preparing for the Tea Party. Focus words "drink" and "eat"

Can't have a Tea Party without friends!
(I added this word to reflect the theme)

More tea?

How about a biscuit?

Camel thought it was delicious!

This simple activity lasted for ages due to the different components and was a lot of fun.

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by focusing on the sensory and fine motor skills aspect of the play dough and the imaginative play of the tea party.

- Extend this activity by putting a greater emphasis on the Early Literacy skills. Discuss action words and see if you can come up with a list together. Perhaps your child could try and write the words themselves or recognise the different letters in the words. 

- Encourage creativity by letting your child use and explore different tools to make their tea party food. Look at the different textures and patterns that you can create.

- Use new language like, "prepare" This will help with their language development.

- Talking and Reading together will help your child develop their language skills, not to mention the incredible bond you create with them.

- It's not too late to join the Memetales Readathon. It's free! Click here to join in the fun :)

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Here is a fun activity you could do at home to help improve reading comprehension and ensure that your children are understanding the meaning of the text.

As I've mentioned before, we are taking part in the MeMeTales Readathon 2012. This week the theme for the Read-a-thon is Animals. The specific animal books are available free on the website this week so once you've joined up you'll be able to read them online. 


We read the Donkey and the Wolf and based this fun activity around that book. You can use any story you want though!

Hello funny donkey

What to do:

Pick a story you've read before or just read.

Explain to your child that you are going to re-enact the story. Have the book (or electronic device with book) on the table where you are going to play.

Set the scene.

This is a really fun bit. You can make the set up as simple or as elaborate as you want. We kept it pretty simple. Some felt for the "meadow" and our characters made out of play dough. We found that adding little googly eyes really brought our characters to life.

Re-read the story & act it out.

Read the story with your child. After you have read each page use your play dough characters to re enact what has just happened on the page. Use this time to also talk about any words or concepts that your child may not understand.

What a scary looking wolf (haha)

 Our characters ready for the story to begin

Watch out Donkey, here comes Wolf!

Donkey has spotted Wolf!

What is happening here? You'll have to read the story to find out ;)

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by setting the scene and making the characters yourself. Then, with your child, help them re-tell the story using the props.

- Extend this activity by having your child make all the props themselves. 

- Mix it up. Once you've re-told the story as it's written, have your child come up with a new story using the same characters or have them change the ending. You can help them do this by asking some leading questions, ie "What do you think would have happened if......?" "Can you show me with your characters what might have happened?" etc.

- Encourage creativity by letting your child know that they can base the characters, etc. on their own interpretation. They don't have to look exactly as they do in the story. You can mix around the scene as well. For example, the book may not picture trees in the meadow, but if your child wants trees, go with it!

- Interest. So, how do you get your child interested to do this if they don't appear to be leaping up at your suggestions? Easy, start playing yourself. Show your children the fun they are missing and I'd be very surprised if at the very least they don't come over and watch you re-telling the story. Also.. this isn't rocket science but make sure there aren't other distractions like TV going in the background.

- Talking and Reading together will help your child develop their language skills, not to mention the incredible bond you create with them.

- Read more about Reading Comprehension for kids here and why it's as important a subject as learning how to read (decode text).

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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