We gave some small world playdough play a whirl recently in between snow play sessions outside. While we often use playdough for modeling, creating, and just as a great sensory experience, the kids also use it for pretend play. This most often means they make food out of the playdough for tea parties, cupcake stores, or living room picnics, but this time they incorporated figurines for some small world play.
It started off fairly simply, with a few princess figurines, a few little animals, a couple sets of wooden snowmen and trees (from Mama May i), some snow (polyfill stuffing that came with the snowmen), and some wood craft sticks
.
The snowmen and trees were placed on the edge of a frozen pond (a a blue art mat
) with a fawn looking on.
The kids used the playdough as bases for the trees and figurines, as hills and other land forms, as houses, and more.
I love how the playdough was seamlessly incorporated into their small world play, adding a new level of creative play to the entire experience.
The playdough also provided a base for what was first a house built out of the wood craft sticks, then a teepee.
Have your kids incorporated figurines and such into their playdough play? If not, you might want to try setting out some animal and people figurines, matchbox cars, etc out with some playdough and a few open-ended add ins (polyfill “snow,” wood craft sticks, pipe cleaners, toothpicks) and see what they come up with.
We used our favorite homemade playdough recipe, but you could use any playdough, homemade or commercial, of course.
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