You'll find plenty of interesting ways to present playdough to your children as well as creative playdough ideas for kids to play with it.
Sensory play is essential for toddlers and preschoolers, and playdough is an affordable, easy material to encourage sensory exploration. Mix up some homemade playdough and choose one of these wonderful playdough activities to start with today.
You might also like our printable playdough mats.
Related - Christmas Playdough Recipes
Playdough Activities
Picasso Faces Playdough Activity
Introduce your child to famous artists from an early age. Our post on Picasso Art for Kids making playdough faces is a terrific way for preschoolers to begin learning about Picasso. Encourage kids to use their creative thinking skills to make faces from playdough using different colours, shapes, etc.
2D Playdough Shapes
Our 2D Playdough Shape Activity is a playful way to learn how to make shapes like squares, rectangles, stars, hexagons, etc. using craft sticks and playdough. It's a fun STEM project you can put together in just a few minutes using homemade playdough or store-bought Play-Doh.
Summer Tree Playdough Activity
Combine nature and sensory play in this Summer Tree Playdough Activity. Go outside to gather a few bright green leaves of various sizes, and pair it with some brown playdough. It's easy and fun! Don't miss our Autumn Playdough Activity for fall.
Woodland Playdough Activity
Our Woodland Playdough Activity is another fun way to incorporate items from nature into your playdough activities. Gather rocks, flowers, leaves, sticks, and anything else you'd like to make a woodland area for toy deer, squirrels, birds, etc. You could also make a Playdough Jungle by switching up the animals used.
Apple Counting Playdough Activity
Use this Apple Theme Counting Activity in autumn or any time during the year to help toddlers and preschoolers engage with numbers in a playful way. Using both a number die and a colour die makes this playdough activity like a game for kids.
Monster Playdough Activity
Toddlers will love our simple Playdough Monster activity where they can add googly eyes and match stick arms and legs to a ball of playdough to create their own monsters. Preschoolers can take it one step further and use this playdough idea to practice their counting as they count how many eyes each monster has.
Playdough Seashell Fossils
Summer is the perfect time for some ocean-themed fun, like our Seashell Fossil Playdough Activity. It's a fun way to discuss how fossils are formed over time. You may even want to leave the playdough out to harden to make it look and feel like real fossils!
Bird Nest Playdough Activity
Learning about birds? Our Build a Bird Nest Playdough Activity is the perfect addition to a bird-themed unit. It's also a fantastic sensory and fine motor activity that toddlers and preschoolers will have hours of fun with.
Pumpkin Playdough Activity
Have fun making pumpkin playdough faces using orange and green playdough along with shapes cut out from black construction paper. This is a perfect playdough idea for Halloween.
Skeleton Playdough Activity
Another fun play dough activity for Halloween is our Playdough Skeleton Activity. This playdough idea is easy to set up and not only great for Halloween, but also for a human body theme. Use our skeleton printables along with black playdough and q sticks.
Playdough Flowers Counting Activity
Set up a fun math exercise using our Playdough Flowers Counting Activity. Kids can make petals for the flowers out of playdough, buttons, leaves, actual flower petals, and so much more!
Van Gogh Sunflowers Playdough Activity
Here is a fun playdough idea for older kids! Learn a little about Van Gogh as you recreate his famous sunflower painting from playdough. Use our printable outline to help your create your own playdough sunflowers.
Box of Chocolates Play Dough Activity
Have fun making a box full of chocolates using our Chocolate Playdough. Toddlers and preschoolers will love getting involved in pretend play as they make, decorate and serve up some delicious looking playdough chocolates.
Playdough Ideas for Learning and Play
Forky Playdough Activity
Build your own Forky with the instructions provided by Simple Everyday Mom. You'll use a wooden spoon, playdough, pipe cleaners, and craft sticks to make a Forky that looks just like the movie version.
Caterpillar to Butterfly Playdough Activity
A Very Hungry Caterpillar is a favourite children's book, and it gets even better when it's paired with this terrific Caterpillar to Butterfly Playdough Activity by Powerful Mothering. You'll want to make plenty of homemade playdough so you can make your caterpillar and butterfly nice and big!
Five Little Ducks Playdough Activity
This Five Little Ducks Playdough Activity by Danya Banya is a fun nursery rhyme-themed play idea that's sure to put a smile on your kiddo's face. Make five little playdough ducks, and then sing the nursery rhyme as the kids move and play with them.
Rainbow Playdough Activity
This Rainbow Playdough Activity by Picklebums is so bright and cheerful! Use the rainbow accessories, like clouds, rainbows, and sunshine to make your own rainbow-themed playdough scene.
Sunflower Playdough Activity
Summer is the season of gorgeous yellow sunflowers, so this Sunflower Playdough Activity by Steam-Powered Family is an excellent activity for kids, even those older than preschoolers. In addition to making homemade playdough, you'll provide lots of loose materials, sunflower seeds, dried black beans, buttons, pom-poms, and more, to encourage kids to build their flowers using a variety of materials.
Chinese or Korean Playdough Activities
Have you ever thought about incorporating playdough into your foreign language lessons? This post on Ways to Teach Chinese and Korean with Playdough by Chalk Academy offers some valuable tips for using playdough to stamp out characters and for forming characters and words.
Ice Cream Playdough
Spend the day in pretend-play with this naturally-coloured and flavoured Ice Cream Playdough by Kids' Craft Room. It has a vibrant purple colour and is easily scoopable, making it perfect for pretend ice cream.
Stick Man Play Dough
Gather sticks, buttons, and googly eyes to build stick men! This Stick Man Play Dough activity by Emma Owl is fun and simple enough for kids of all ages to make. It goes wonderfully with the Stick Man book!
Pokemon Playdough
Do you have Pokemon obsessed kids? They'll love this fun Pokemon Playdough by STEAM Powered Family. Kids will learn how to make a playdough Pikachu as well as a playdough Pokeball. Isn't that neat?
Sensory Playdough Donuts
How about making some Sensory Donuts by Barley and Birch? Set up a donut-making station with playdough, slime "icing," sprinkles, and other goodies to make pretty donuts that are fun to squish, squeeze, pinch apart, etc.
City Playdough Activity
This City Playdough Activity by Picklebums can provide kids with hours of fun. It includes free printable traffic signs and traffic cones so that you can set up your own little city for your toy cars.
Cupcake Playdough Activity
Read the book, Camilla, the Cupcake Fairy, and make gorgeous Playdough Cupcakes by Artsy Momma. This is the perfect "crafternoon" to spend with your kids. Add spices and extracts to your homemade playdough to make it smell like you're really baking. You can also try our Playdough Cupcake Counting Activity.
One Fish Two Fish Playdough Idea
This One Fish, Two Fish Edible Playdough Recipe by Natural Beach Living is a wonderful marshmallow playdough recipe that's perfect for a Dr. Seuss party or just to make and enjoy while reading his famous book by the same name. Add candy fish for extra fun.
Learning Your Name Playdough Puzzle
Using playdough and letter stamps is a fun and engaging way to learn your name. This activity from Growing Book by Book is terrific for helping kids recognise and reinforce the spelling of their names before they start writing it.
Playdough Sensory Bag
Playdough can be great for babies, too, when it's presented carefully. Take this Playdough Sensory Bag for Babies by Simple Fun for Kids, for instance. Your baby can push, squish, and squeeze the bag (with lots of supervision) to enjoy the squishy feel of the playdough.
Playdough Baby Turtles
What a fun invitation to play! This Baby Turtle Playdough Activity by Barley and Birch encourages kids to use playdough and other materials to make baby turtles. Provide pictures of different kinds of turtles for smaller children to model their turtles after.
Excavating Dinosaurs from Playdough
Try Excavating Dinosaur Eggs with this cool activity from School Time Snippets. If you have toy dinos and some playdough, you have everything you need for this fab sensory activity that teaches kids about dinosaurs and reptilian eggs.
Watermelon Playdough Counting
Watermelon Kool-Aid makes this Watermelon Playdough by Sugar Spice and Glitter smell incredible. Add it to a watermelon-shaped bowl or to an empty watermelon hull along with some black beans, which serve as seeds. Kids can scoop the playdough like real melon as well as count "seeds."
Pin this list of playdough activities, so you'll have boredom buster playdough ideas ready to go in a pinch next time your child asks what to make with playdough. Don't forget to check out our homemade playdough recipes too.
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