Looking for playdough activities for kids? There’s so much potential in humble playdough, whether you buy yours or make your own. Here are 39 playdough activities, including ways to create, build, play, and learn with playdough.
After posting about cooked versus no cook playdough recipes the other day, I thought I’d follow with a round up of ways for kids to use and play with the playdough. I began with links to my many playdough posts, but then went a little crazy and added all kinds of other playdough fun found around the web.
Enjoy!
39 Playdough Activities for Kids
Playdough Art Activities
- Explore color mixing with playdough (from At the Butterfly Ball)
- Playdough dress up (from Inspiration Surrounds… Creativity Abounds)
- Make a playdough maze (from Squashed Tomatoes)
- Roll the playdough into balls, snakes, and snails
- Make your own natural dyes for the playdough (from Mini Eco)
Poke Things in the Playdough
- Poke in spaghetti (from Having Fun at Home)
- Make spaghetti towers by stringing on pasta and cheerios (from Pre-School Play)
- Make sand playdough and add seashells (from The Imagination Tree)
- Use googly eyes and feathers to create playdough monsters
- Stick candles in for birthday cakes
- Poke in toothpicks to make porcupines and other prickly creatures
- Stick in popsicle sticks
- Add beads and pipecleaners for playdough robots (from Counting Coconuts)
Make Prints in Playdough
- Use sculpey nature prints to make flower and leaf prints in the playdough
- Make leaf prints from real leaves (from Nurture Store)
- Make lace prints in playdough
- Roll textured rolling pins in the playdough
Playdough Kitchen Activities
- Open a playdough bakery (from Frugal Family Fun Blog)
- Be a playdough short order cook
- Make playdough pizza (plus lots of other playdough ideas, from Childhood 101)
- Whip up a batch of edible peanut butter playdough
Make Playdough Gifts
- Make Rainbow playdough
- Here’s Candy Cane Playdough
- And Playdough Snowmen in Snow Globes
- Simple glittery playdough with googly eyes (from Sew Liberated)
- Playdough Valentine’s are sweet! (from Simple as That)
- Playdough gift with cookie cutter and recipe (from eighteen25)
Science Activities with Playdough
- Playdough makes a good volcano
- Use playdough to make a tabletop forest ecosystem
- Make glow in the dark playdough (from Sun Hats & Wellie Boots)
- Create a playdough Earth (from Meet the Dubiens)
- Make galaxy playdough (from Fairy Dust Teaching)
Playdough Literacy Activities
- Write messages in playdough
- Stamp letters in playdough (from KindergartenWorks)
- Practice letters (from KinderGals)
More Playdough Activities for Kids
- Make a playdough train table! (from Filth Wizardry)
- Use the playdough for a fun sensory experience (from The Magic Onions)
- Cut playdough snakes—a great first cutting activity for toddlers (from OT Mom)
Do you have any great playdough ideas for kids to add—either your own or ideas you’ve seen elsewhere? If so, please include them in the comments!
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Wow – a great list of ideas. I save the inside of chocolate advent calendars because you can squish play dough into the tray and end up with interesting shapes and imprints. We have used empty chocolate boxes too but they aren’t as interesting.
This is a great round-up!
We love playing with play dough and recently had fun with a little play dough factory: http://www.dillydaliart.com/2012/01/process-art-play-dough.html
Pinning this! :)
you guys make play dough or buy? Id like to know how you get so much! The stuff in the shops are really tiny in qty! Thanks. Lovely ideas.Do
GREAT post full of ideas. I will be sure to pass this along to the parents in my classes the next time we make playdough! I think this gets the point across that the possibilities are really infinite once you open your eyes (and mind) to the prompts that are all around us! Thanks for the inspiration!
what a fabulous list of ideas–I could never have thought of half of these! My son LOVES mazes so we will definitely have to do that!
Sarah M
Dina, we make our own playdough. It’s easy and cheap and we always make a big batch!
Here’s my favorite recipe for no cook playdough: https://artfulparent.com/2012/02/no-cook-versus-cooked-homemade-playdough-recipe.html
Here’s my favorite recipe for cooked playdough: https://artfulparent.com/2010/12/candy-cane-playdough.html
Love your playdough factory! How fun!
What a great idea! Wonder what other kinds of trays (and little molds) you can use?
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing!!!!
I adore the playdough Earth, really creative! I found these cute little heads for cupcakes in the baking section at michaels and we have been making people with playdough; your recipe is great. Just when I thought I had done it all with playdough too. thanks for the inspiration!
I love, love, love how many ideas are here. We will be trying some very soon. Thanks!
This is a fabulous post – one I’ll be pinning. I love how you have broken it up into different ways to explore with playdough.
My children enjoy playing with playdough most days. I’m always trying to think of different ways we can use our play dough.
Our most recent source of inspiration has been replicating birthday cakes that you see in the children’s cake cookbooks. My little girl made a playdough dolly varden “cake” – I wrote about it here:
http://etadventures.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/fancy-play-dough-birthday-cakes.html
We also like to use our “Playdough Mystery Box’ which I explained here:
http://etadventures.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/play-dough-mystery-box.html
We made playdough cities here:
http://etadventures.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/playdough-city.html
Old calendar pictures make wonderful backdrops for playdough creations. I wrote about this here:
http://etadventures.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/scenes-to-inspire-play-dough-creations.html
My children have also had fun making picture book playdough scenes which can be seen here:
http://etadventures.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/picture-book-play-dough-scenes.html
Wow! That is a huge list of what you can do with playdough! We will have to give it a try =D
I feel kind of dreamy looking at all that playdough! Mmmmmm. Happiness is…
I’ve just created a daily/weekly schedule for my girls and myself, and I’ve intentionally scheduled some time for play dough to make sure we remember to get it out every week. There are enough ideas here to keep us busy til summer. Thank you so much!
Thanks so much for compiling these great ideas. I made playdough with my daughter the other day and had the best time creating a giant sparkly clown:)
What a fun idea of adding playdough bodies to the cupcake heads!
Wow! So many great posts, Elise! Thanks for sharing!
:)
You’re welcome! I hope you and your girls enjoy the playdough time!
Oooh! I giant, sparkly playdough crown!
ITS PRITTY COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.ITS FUN TO MAKE THINGS WITH PLAY-DOUGH. I LIKE PLAY-DOUGH
if your a girl they can make food for a barbies it is realy fun
My son and I make dinosaur tracks(from miniature dinosaur figures) in homemade playdoh he got for his birthday. He loves it!
Great list of play-doh fun!! This will keep me and the kids busy for a long time :) Thank you!