Developing Fine Motor Skills with Playdough

When young children are having fun rolling, pinching, patting, poking and squishing playdough, they are also working on strengthening the small muscles in their fingers and hands. These muscles that they are using need this kind of strengthening as they are the same ones that are used later in life when cutting, drawing, doing up buttons and zips and writing. Developing fine motor skills with playdough is a fun activity that will keep young children occupied for ages.

Playdough Activities

There are so many activities that playdough can be used for when working on developing fine motor skills. Here are just a few:

• Roll playdough into balls using the thumb and fingers.
• Form the letters of the alphabet with playdough
• Make long snakes with playdough and cut them into pieces with a pair of scissors
• Roll out the playdough and cut out shapes using cookie cutters
• Use items such as googly eyes, beads, buttons, pegs, straws and feathers to push and press into playdough
• Make pretend cakes, cupcakes, pizza, and pies with playdough
• Make different landforms with playdough eg. mountains, hills, rivers, lakes

Playdough Printable Mats

• Kids love learning about butterflies. After watching and counting them outside, they can create the life cycle of a butterfly from playdough with these fun Butterfly Life Cycle Playdough Mats.
• Learn about the letters of the alphabet with these fun Alphabet Pictures Playdough Mats.
• These balls can then be used with these A-Z Ten Frame Mats to mark out the correct numbers. These mats are currently on sale until the end of August 2020.
• Learn about the life cycle of a bee with these playdough mats.
• If you have dinosaur-loving kids, then they will love creating dinosaurs out of playdough with these Dinosaur Playdough Mats.
• Children can create the letters of the alphabet with these Alphabet Letters Playdough Mats.
• The ladybug is an interesting insect for young children to learn about, especially when they can create the ladybug life cycle out of playdough.
• Looking for a great way to introduce young children to music theory? These Music Notes and Instruments Playdough Mats are a great way to have fun and learn at the same time.
• Children can learn about the life cycle of a frog with these fun Frog Life Cycle Playdough Mats.
• These counting mats can also be laminated and used with playdough to help children practice their counting from 1 – 20.
• Learn about different Australian animals with these fun Australian Animals Playdough Mats.
• Introduce the different seasons to your kids with these fun Seasons Playdough Mats which are on sale until the end of August 2020.

Need a Playdough recipe?

• Have an excess of broken crayons? Why not use them to create lovely colored playdough.
• Children will love helping to make this edible playdough with Peeps and sprinkles.
• This edible marshmallow playdough is fun, even though it doesn’t keep very well.
• Made some playdough with your favorite flavored Jell-O.
• For a super smooth playdough, try this one.
• Here are some fun edible playdough recipes.