30+ Fun Playdough Ideas for Kids

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We LOVE playdough! As evidences by these ideas and these play dough recipes post we’ve been already sharing with you.

If you’re looking for more craft inspiration for your kids or new activities that will help to develop their motor skills and creativity, Pinterest is an endless source of inspiration.

Playdough is a really classic and versatile plaything; children can never get tired of it. The texture of the stuff reveals the creativity of fine motor skills and is fun to be played with for heaps of hours.

This article introduces loads of playdough ideas that can always keep your kid or children tamed and amused. Going from simple forms, the following ideas are appropriate for children of all skill levels and ages.

Well, let us plunge into the colorful world of playdough to rejoice and bring the wonders of happiness and imagination to children by playing with it.

Below is the round-up of our favorite activities along with a few play dough recipes.

For more inspiration for kids’ activities, games and more follow our Pinterest board here.

30+ Fun Playdough Ideas

1. Cupcake Playdough Kit

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2. Playdough 3D Face

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3. Playdough Pasta Rainbow

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4. Playdough Maze

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5. Natural Scented Playdough

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6. Playdough Message Board

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7. Playdough Pasta Portraits

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8. Playdough Strawberries

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9. Free Printable Play Dough Mats

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10. Home-Made Play Dough Recipe

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11. Duck Pond Play Dough

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12. Ice Cream Play Dough

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13. Frozen Play Dough Kit

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14. Play Dough Bugs

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15. Play Dough Dinosaur Kit

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16. Play Dough Bug Fossils

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17. Summer Play Dough Kit

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18. Dirt Play Dough

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19. Play Dough Flower Planting

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20. Monster Play Dough

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21. Birthday Play Dough Kit

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22. Rainbow Play Dough Kit

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23. Pirate Play Dough Kit

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24. Love Bug Play Dough Kit

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25. Sea Creature Play Dough Kit

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26. Sand Play Dough Kit

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27. Play Dough Ants

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28. Outer Space Play Dough

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29. Galaxy Play Dough

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30. Fairy Garden Play Dough

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31. Play Dough Butterflies

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32. Sunflower Play Dough Activity

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33. Flower Pot Play Dough

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34. Unicorn Play Dough

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35. Edible Play Dough Recipe

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36. Mini Play Dough Aquariums

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37. Jungle Play Dough

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38. Arctic Themed Play Dough Activity

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The Benefits of Playdough

To understand why playdough is such a powerful developmental tool for children, one has to take a step back for a moment and appreciate something before one gets into all the fun stuff.

Playing with playdough helps in the improvement of fine motor skills in a child; they work with the dough by squeezing, rolling, and forming it. It helps in hand-eye coordination and the strengthening of these muscles in hands and fingers—important for writing and other such daily actions.

Moreover, it nurtures the creativity and imagination of a child. It allows the children to dream of anything and create it, may this be an animal, food, or even an abstract design.

This provides playing without a defined endpoint, or it allows open-ended playing that nurtures problem-solving skills and cognitive development. The sensation of touching and maneuvering play dough is soothing and therapeutic; hence, the result is stress relief.

Play-dough with Here are two simple recipes for you to make play dough at home in different colors and textures easily, cheaply.

Classic Playdough Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup salt
  • 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 cups water
  • Food coloring

Instructions:

Combine the flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a large pot. Add water to the cup ingredients. Add the vegetable oil and food coloring. Pour mixture into a heavy-bottomed pan and heat over medium, stirring constantly until the mixture forms a ball.

Give the mixture a chance to cool, then knead until smooth.

Edible Playdough Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • 2 tablespoons honey

Instructions:

Combine the peanut butter, sugar, and honey in a bowl. Knead it into a dough-like form. Keep in an air-tight container.

Fun with Playdough Ideas and Activities

Nature Impressions

Take a nature walk with your kids and gather leaves, flowers, and little twigs. Afterward, take the items at home and press them in the playdough to make beautiful natural impressions.

This will not only launch creativity, but also open the eyes of the kid toward nature.

Playdough Supply:

  • googly eyes
  • pipe cleaners, and more for some silly monster play-dough fun.

Let the kids create their own silly monsters in their own playful ways. This will, for sure, boost their creativity, helping to improve the backstories of these monsters regarding stories from these little children.

Play-Dough Bakery

Pretend you have a bakery. Have a setup with dough made from clay, with which cookies, cakes, and other bakery items are made using cookie cutters, rolling pins, and plastic utensils. This kind of play helps one with their social skills, as one child will play the baker and another will become the customer.

Alphabet Fun

Practice letter forms with your kids by molding play dough. Later, alphabet cookie cutters can be used too. Such a tactile activity makes the boring process of letter learning a lot more interesting and could easily be a starting point from which to spell out simple words.

Blending of Colours

Teach your children about colors and color mixing by mixing together differently colored slabs of playdough. Begin with the primary colors red, blue, and yellow, then mix. This is the way to make color theory fun.

Playdough Use

Use stamps as a way of making patterns and texture on the playdough—add buttons, bottle caps, toys, etc. This is an excellent activity for the enhancement of the child’s fine motor skills and for the introduction of textures and design to the child.

Sensory Play

Make it even more of a sensory experience by including different textures in your playdough. Put in items like rice, sand, or glitter to give it a feel of its own.

This really helps as a sensory activity for children with needs of sensory processing, and it is calming and interesting to them.

Playdough Jewels

pretend jewelry by forming the playdough into beads, bracelets, and rings. You can poke holes in the beads by poking straws through them and then string them together with yarn or shoelaces.

This activity does some nice work on fine motor skills and creativity.

Conclusion

Playdough is not just a plaything; it is also a learning, creating, and entertainment tool. Your children will learn a lot from the following incredible things that can be done using playdough.

You can play with any amount of it, either store-bought or homemade, leading to limitless possibilities for imaginative play with your children.

So, roll up your sleeves, get your hands a little bit messy, and dive into the great world of playdough together with your kids. I bet you will be as surprised by the things they will create as by the joy it brings to them.

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Julie Higgins
Author
Julie is a Staff Writer at momooze.com. She has been working in publishing houses before joining the editorial team at momooze. Julie's love and passion are topics around beauty, lifestyle, hair and nails.

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