10 Simple Play Dough Activities To Try Out With Preschoolers

Play dough is one of the most prominent play things that comes to every mom’s mind when thinking about kids activities. For centuries, educators have recommended this old yet creative play tool to kids, as it enhances imagination and creativity thinking in kids. Additionally, it enhances sensory experiences and cognitive development. If you want to give some exercise to your little one’s brain, then roll up your sleeves to make homemade play dough and start doing activities with your kids. To help you, today I came up with 10 easy play dough activity ideas that create sparks in the minds of little explorers! So, gather your supplies, clear your schedules, and get ready for endless hours of fun and discovery with play dough activities!

Warning: Supervise your kids closely while playing with play dough, especially with younger children, to ensure safe and enjoyable play.

Making Impressions on Play Dough – Nature Hunt

To start the nature hunt, equip your little kid with baskets or bags. Get along with them to seek out nature for collecting things – from different shaped leaves and colorful feathers to fragrant flowers and smooth stones. Then, guide them to create impressions on play dough with things collected from nature. Watch as they press leaves into the dough, creating intricate imprints that capture the beauty of the wild into play dough. This activity interests your kid to create more art from nature and also fosters spatial awareness. This installation of a deeper appreciation toward the wonders of nature will make their day memorable!

Play Dough Alphabet/Number Stamps

Stamping letters, words, and numbers is one of the things that even I enjoyed while doing! To involve your kid in such an entertaining activity, start by selecting an assortment of colorful stamps featuring letters, numbers, and even playful shapes like stars, hearts, and smiley faces. Roll and spread out play dough on a clean surface. Then, guide them to imprint them onto the play dough.

The activity doesn’t end here. You can make it much more educative. Here, I tell you how!

How about a letter scavenger hunt where your child must find and stamp each letter of the alphabet in order?
Or a race against the clock to see how many numbers they can stamp before time runs out?

This activity promotes letter and number recognition as they search for the right stamps and identify each shape they create while stimulating creativity and hand-eye coordination.

Forming Words

Apart from making the session creative and entertaining, you can also teach words to build your child’s vocabulary through play. Let me explain how! To engage your child in literacy learning, make word cards by writing small 3 or 4-letter words on a card or sheet of paper. Then, show it to them and ask them to recreate the words using alphabet stamps on the dough. Start by selecting a set of familiar words and increase the complexity gradually. Along the way, don’t forget to teach what the meaning of the word.

You can also turn it into a game of word association, instead of simply recreating the words on the cards. Encourage your child to think of other words that start with the same letter or have similar sounds. For example, if the word on the card is “cat,” they could also stamp out words like “can,” “car,” or “coat.”

Let’s Make Shape on Dough

Shapes! Shapes! And Shapes everywhere! But do our children consciously notice the shapes around them? It might be questionable, right? And thus, I came up with this activity which makes your kid explore the world of shapes. To do this activity, provide objects of different shapes like circles, squares, and rectangles. These might be objects from around the house that have interesting shapes – think cookie cutters, toy blocks, kitchen utensils, or even everyday items like keys or coins. Roll and spread out a fresh batch of play dough. Invite your child to make shape impressions on the dough and teach the names of the shapes along the way. As they create shape impressions, they’ll learn about geometric shapes while honing their fine motor skills and developing an understanding of spatial concepts – all at the same time!

Making Play Dough Christmas Tree

A play dough session won’t be complete without molding shapes of different things! But the question is, how can we make it simple yet interesting? Here’s the idea! Let’s make a Christmas tree, a colorful yet simple shape to start with. Offer a fresh batch of vibrant green play dough. Teach them to make cone-shaped lush pine trees. Also, offer buttons and pompoms to adorn the dough tree! This hands-on activity promotes fine motor skills as they carefully place each button and pompom, while also fostering creativity and imagination as they envision their perfect Christmas tree.

Buttoning the Letters on Play Dough

Once again, a letter activity! This activity is a little different from the earlier one. To play it, offer letter cards with printed or written alphabetical letters! Then, give them small buttons. You can also choose small pebbles, seeds, or anything you wish! Spread out a fresh batch of play dough and invite your child to roll it. Then, ask your child to form the letter impressions on the dough using buttons. This interactive play dough activity provides a hands-on way to reinforce alphabet learning in fun way.

Play Dough Muffin

Muffins are absolutely one of the most favorite snack options for kids! Why not make it a favorite activity option? To make it as one, provide your child with a muffin tray and muffin cups. Offer different colored play dough. Encourage your child to shape the dough into muffins and place them inside the muffin tray. Make them decorate their yummy muffins with colorful buttons and pompoms. More interestingly, you can go a step further and also bake the dough muffins in the oven to preserve the decorations made by your little one. Enjoy the delightful art cupcakes created by your child!

Play Dough Rainbow

Rainbow comes to our minds whenever colors are involved. So how can we miss out on a colourful play dough rainbow! To craft a vibrant rainbow with play dough, encourage your child to roll out each color into long, snake-like ropes. Then, arrange them side by side in semicircular shapes to form the rainbow. This delightful activity promotes color recognition, creativity, and sensory exploration as they mix and match different hues to create their little rainbow within their playroom.

Play Dough Popsciles

Next, let’s make alluring colourful Popsciles. To create some playful popsicles using play dough, you need popsicle sticks, colorful buttons, and pompoms! Next, show your kid how to roll the play dough into cylindrical shapes, mimicking the look of real popsicles. Insert a popsicle stick into each play dough cylinder to serve as the handle. Now comes the fun part – decorating! Offer the colorful buttons and pompoms for your child to embellish their popsicles. Encourage them to press the buttons and pompoms onto the play dough to create unique designs and patterns. Once they’re finished decorating, you can also bake the popsicles in the oven to preserve it.

Popscile Stick Colour Punch

Play Dough Popsicle Stick Colour Punch activity is interesting and a satisfying activity for little ones. To play this activity, place different coloured play doughs in a muffin tray /egg tray. Next, provide corresponding colored popsicle sticks. Encourage your child to punch or insert the colored stick into the matching colored dough, identifying the colors as they go. This activity promotes color recognition, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and creativity in children.

More Play Dough Activities To Try Out

1). How to Make Play Dough Snake

We have come to the end of the play dough activities session! Hope you get inspired by the play dough activity ideas and try this out with your little ones.

Happy playing, happy crafting!