Where Play Meets Potential
Ok, if Starbucks can release their pumpkin line in August, then I can start my Fall activities at the same time right?
I mean I did think it was a little too early for pumpkin everything, but I thought we could start small with some orange colored activities.
I tried play dough with Ruby awhile ago when she had just turned one with my classic water, flour, salt, oil recipe. I even added mint tea and green food coloring. I thought the smell and color would be enticing enough. Wrong!
She touched it a total of about four times and tried mouthing it twice. The taste must have been awful enough for her to avoid the fun squishy texture of play dough.
I was so bummed. I love play dough and I love all the fun ways to use play dough. I couldn’t wait to try out all of our loose parts play using play dough.
Her disdain made me table the idea. Then along came my Edible Sensory Play post and one of my contributors @playingwithwittle gave the idea of sweet potato play dough. I was so inspired and it still took me a while to finally cave and make play dough again.
If your toddler is anything like mine and loves to put EVERYTHING in their mouth, then a good edible sensory base is important.
I figured if I took out the variable of the awful taste of play dough, then I could really see if Ruby didn’t like play dough or if she just didn’t like the taste.
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My husband hates it when I just wing a recipe and not use formal measurements, but that’s just how I do things. I call it creative. Anyways, this is more of a “fakecipe” without exact measurements. Sorry to those that love to follow a recipe to the tee.
Ok, there is my version of a recipe. Haha, it’s a good thing I do not write a food blog. Just comment or contact me with any questions you may have.
I really wanted to try play dough on our DIY light table and I think it is also important to keep setups simple for toddlers. As children get older you can add more materials or more complicated provocations for play and learning.
I also wanted to keep the Fall theme by going with an orange color. I collected some orange magnet tiles, orange rings, and orange pins. I thought these materials would be great for squishing the playdough. I also love to play with one color at a time so that Ruby (14 months) can begin to learn her colors through interactions and play.
When we play I can say things like, “Oooo look at the orange play dough” “The magnet tile is orange too” “Look how the light makes the orange look.” This repeated exposure to the word orange is how young children learn language and begin to associate the word with the object or attribute.
Ruby was hesitant at first. I modeled how she could squish the play dough with her fingers and then with the objects. She grabbed a big piece and put it directly into her mouth. She didn’t spit it out, throw it on the ground, run away screaming or crying. She actually came back to eat more!
Even though it was completely edible, I tried to get her to focus on playing rather than eating. I wanted her to practice not eating it so that we could eventually try non-edible play dough and other sensory bases.
With some modeling, she poked the play dough, pushed the rings and magnet tiles into the play dough, threw the play dough onto the light table, carried the play dough around and squeezed the play dough in her hands.
I would say she warmed up to play dough like a nice pumpkin spice latte.
Watching her poke and squeeze the play dough reminded me why play dough is such a great sensory tool. When children play with play dough they are using and developing their fine motor skills, strength, and coordination in a really fun and engaging way. As a former kindergarten teacher, I can really appreciate just how important these early fine motor skills are for later writing, drawing, cutting, and self-care activities.
If you wanted to up the Fall-inspiration to this activity you could add Fall themed loose parts such as pumpkins, gourds, leaves, sticks, fall table scatter, fall cookie cutters, etc. Pumpkin stamping or sticking leaves and sticks into the play dough sound like fun extensions as well.
Let me know how you would use this orange edible play dough this Fall?
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