Fancy Play Dough Activity

Table of Contents:

1. Let’s make some fancy play dough today!
2. Setting up Fancy Play Dough is so easy!
3. My kids loved fancy play dough
4. What are they learning in an activity like this?
5. Would your kids like fancy play dough?  

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Let’s make some fancy play dough today!

Anyone else suffer from FOPDCM (you know, Fear of Play Dough Colors Mixing) or is it just me? I love playing play dough but can’t stand the colors mixed together.

Enter Fancy Play Dough aka my new favorite way to use mixed up play dough colors.

Setting up Fancy Play Dough is so easy!

Materials:
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• Play dough – I had a bunch of containers that had been mixed together
• Beads
• Buttons
• Gems

I set this activity up as an “invitation to play” for my kids (ages 3.5 years and 24 months old). I put a bunch of mixed up play dough on a tray along with small containers of craft-type supplies – one tray for each kid.

I chose to do this activity with mixed up play dough as a way to reuse it before we get some new colors. That way, if any of the beads or buttons didn’t come out, I wouldn’t have ruined any new/good play dough.

My kids loved fancy play dough

I must have really sold this activity well because my kids played for a solid 20 minutes with this activity.

It was an absolute hit and they loved it!

They loved adding beads, gems, jewels, and buttons to the play dough to make it fancy. It was a very “Fancy Nancy” type of an activity.

I gave each child their own set of materials and that seemed best for my kids and this activity.

I loved the creativity in each child’s work, the precision of their process, and the open ended nature.

What are they learning in an activity like this?

An activity like this is great for:

• Fine motor skills development – working with the small beads
• Creativity – deciding how the gems should be laid out

Setting up this activity was a great way to work with and give life to mixed up play dough colors.

To my surprise, the gems and buttons came out of the play dough easily so we’ve actually saved our mixed up colors to use in this activity again and again.

Fancy play dough was the perfect way to breathe a little life into our mixed up colors. And a perfect toddler activity to get us to nap time!

Would your kids like fancy play dough?