by Rachel Wells
Play dough has been a staple of childhood for generations. From strengthening hand muscles to sparking creativity, this simple play material does more than offer a fun way to play. Play dough is open ended and versatile, and it’s easy to incorporate play dough into tons of meaningful and fun hands-on and educational activities for almost any subject or grade level.
The following educational play dough activities are a great way to keep students engaged while giving them a chance to be creative and do some critical thinking all at the same time!
Play Dough for Elementary School
Moon Phases
Print a calendar for the month. Have students make the shape of the moon each night out of play dough and lay their model on the correct spot on the calendar. Let the pieces harden so you can study the moon phases together and how the moon changes shape throughout the month. To make this extra fun you can try it with glow-in-the-dark play dough!
Compare Fractions
Use cookie cutters to cut out play dough circles. Have students cut the circles using a plastic knife to represent different fractions and write the fractions on a wipe off board.
Sight Word Stamping
Use a pack of alphabet stamps with play dough to practice spelling out sight words. All you need to do it roll some playdough flat and stick the stamps right into the dough to leave a print.
Pattern Practice
Have students roll balls of play dough to create different patterns. You can use the patterns to create a caterpillar or stack them like scoops of ice cream.
Earth’s Layers
Use different colors of play dough to represent the different layers of the earth – wrapping them around each other. Finish by slicing the play dough globes in half to see a cross section of the planet.
Character Creations
Students use play dough to create a model of a character from a story, then lay it on a paper with descriptive words for the character written on it.
Play Dough for Older Grades
Students don’t stop enjoying kinesthetic activities just because they’re no longer in elementary school. In fact, older kids might just be so excited about the throwback to their childhood that they find using play dough to be one or their favorite classroom activities.
Discussion Review
After a classroom lesson, ask students to create a play dough sculpture related to the discussion, and explain how and why that sculpture applies.
Make a Model
Science: Have students create models of cells, the layers of the earth, DNA, parts of the brain, etc.
History/Social Studies: Students can create models of inventions or important historical objects.
Math: Students can use play dough to make models of a story problem, or fill out data on a graph.
Gallery Walk
After learning about a topic have students answer a critical thinking question with a play dough model. Have students leave their creation on their desk and let everyone walk around to check out the other creations.
Pictionary Review
Write vocabulary words or terms on slips of paper. Place students into teams and have one student from each group pick a term. That student then has one minute to create a sculpture to represent the word and see if the other students on their team can guess what it is.
Character Creations
We put this one on both this because it really works great for kids of any age! Students use play dough to create a model of a character from a story, then lay it on a paper with descriptive words for the character written on it.
Show and Tell
When students come back from a break, have them sculpt something fun they did instead of having them talk about it. You can then give students a chance to share their sculpture while they share about their break.
Looking for more ideas? Be sure to check out our post on Play Dough Activities for the First Day of School
image provided by freepik.com
