How to Play and Learn with Play Dough?

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Kids like playing with the play dough and that is even more interesting when they can make it by themselves. It is useful for kids to observe the process of making it and get even a slight idea of how plain everyday items at the home kitchen tools necessary tools for this kind of project.
Kids learn math when they need to measure the needed amount of the exact ingredient. They will be able to do counting once their play dough is made. They learn communicative skills as well. However the most important, the kids learn while they are having fun. Kids have the possibility to use their creative and turn on the imagination. The play dough games can be played as well in groups, in pairs, alone, or with the adults.

Kids learn through a great variety of ways, the one of the varieties is through the play dough texture. Play dough allows kids to explore it with the senses as touch and smell. When children mix all the ingredients they are enhancing their senses touch, and if adults want to let them have some fun it would be great to add Kool-Aid for a nice color and moreover for a tasty smell that will make kid’s smelling senses go crazy.

Children may play alone or in the group settings, that enables them to be involved in social play, or solitary play, or parallel play, or associative play, and even cooperative play. In the book the pathways to play, it states, "to play successfully with the others, kids should learn how to coordinate their way of behavior and to cooperate". Playing with the play dough allows kids to interact with other kids with a bit of pressure from the adults. It means they can enjoy the play and by giving them a chance to be involved into the process of creating their own play dough things they build own self-confidence and moreover they are eager to learn.

It is better for parents to be prepared with all the needed compounds and tools as well as preparing the area that is really close to the sink in case if you need to clean. This project is quite simple and just needs the table and some chairs to start creating a fun and exciting learning environment with lots of opportunities for using the imagination to discover the creative world of play dough. A perfect place should be as plain as for example your kitchen, or maybe your patio outside or of course teacher’s classroom. If you’re planning to redesign your art place, provide time, and some space, and surely the materials that will let kids to work at their own places without being interrupted. That area may include all the necessary ingredients in one, and no doubt the tools to measure or mix in another, but all should be in reach for the kids.

This project is directed on the kids the ages of 2-5. A two year old child might learn the necessary motor skills just simply by measuring with a usual tablespoon and the older child might learn the important concept of conservation. Children in that age group certainly require more control of the finger movement that allows them to become skillful in using tiny materials that need to be grasped and controlled. This is ideal for children for developing their motor skills. By actually measuring with the special spoons or rolling with the rolling pins kids obtain useful tools and what’s important they are not aware that they are actually learning. Children at the age group of 0-2 are still in the stage of motor sensor according to the famous Vygotsky. So it means that children surely want to touch and of course to taste everything. This is just fine for this project. Parents can feel safe because all of the ingredients of the play dough are absolutely safe to consume. Also the play dough has a unique texture that kids may love or even hate, however it is more likely that they would enjoy exploring. Play dough and the great variety of tools permits the kids to manipulate and really experiment with forms, combination, texture, and transformation in different things. Kids can pinch it, poke it, pull it, even likely to smash it back together or just put the object inside of it. The cookie cutters may also be used for fun as easy making shapes. They surely would enjoy the nice soft texture.

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