Play dough is a wonderful resource that fosters play, communication, imagination, creativity, fine motor skills, color recognition, color mixing, and the list goes on. It can be homemade or store bought and the kinds of things you can add to play dough is really endless. Adding props to play dough is just one of many ways to invite new interest in the play dough experience. Here are a just a few of our props that we add to our play dough throughout the school year…
Seeds
Feathers
Real or Paper Rulers
Birthday candles, confetti, cupcake pans and liners
Flowers and Flower Pots
Cookie Cutters and Rolling Pins
Sparkles and Buttons
Cootie Bug Game Pieces (and feathers)
Seashells (exploring shell prints)
Gems and Straws (making butterflies)
Keys (making key prints)
I’m sure you have other props for play dough that your kids love. Share your ideas in the comments below and we can continue building our collection!
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow
Homemade Recipe Playdough Book by Nurturestore
DIY Eyeballs for Playdough by Teach Preschool
Measuring Playdough Inchworms by Teach Preschool
Our playdough is under construction by Teach Preschool
Blocks with Playdough by ARTCHOO
it’s fun to use tissue paper confetti in un-coloured playdough. The colour leeches out of the confetti and transfers into the dough
Oooh, great idea!
You may also use choclate and jelly moulds.
Small colored craft sticks also make fun play with playdough.
I just happen to have some of those too! Great idea!
I love adding things to play dough…!
Toy tools…plastic letters (like the ones used in building directory signs)…
vinyl animals/insects…plastic spiders (cut the rings off)…spatulas…plastic knives…plastic plates…fake flowers…OH, the possibilities…!!! 😉
These are wonderful suggestions! How long do you typically leave out a particular prop before switching to something new?
As long as the children show interest or when we need the board for another purpose or if the sticky loses it’s stickiness which takes a while depending on the amount of use the board gets.
My favourite tool is adding sharpened pencils. The children love to use them to add details and designs to creations. Also helps to practice proper pencil grip.
I also like to sometime add different scents while making playdough. Peppermint extract around Christmas, lemon extract to yellow playdough etc.
The children love to use them to add details and designs to creations. I really enjoyed looking at all your beautiful string quilts. Wow. I am inspired to add one to my ‘need to try’ list. Thanks!
Ideas from Hands on As We Grow: https://handsonaswegrow.com/pretend-create-learn-with-play-dough/
You always have such amazing ideas! These play dough props make learning so fun and interesting.
Our kids love to make spaghetti and hair with a garlic press I found at the discount store.
The children at my setting love to make playdough cakes and we have a variety of cake decorations to enhance their play. This is particularly popular at Christmas when we get out the reindeer, snowmen and Santa decorations.
I try to match scents to the colour of the dough eg lemon essence in yellow dough, strawberry in red, mint to pale green dough etc
Try adding sprigs of fresh lavender to purple dough – very calming.
One of my favourites is to add Christmas spice like mixed spice, cinnamon or nutmeg.
I haven’t done playdough with scents in forever! You have inspired me to make a batch next week!!
When adding things like seeds to play dough, do you have kids remove them when it is clean up time? Or are they left in for them to explore again? Love the eyes on the outlet covers !! Going to get that done this week.
They are either left for additional exploration or since the play dough is home made, the play dough is just thrown away.