This month the children in School-age 1 have been engaged in sensory exploration and learning through activities with play dough! The children have participated in a variety of imaginative experiments using play dough and many different materials.
First, the children began by pretending to bake cakes with the play dough and used the cutters to create different shapes. The children molded the play dough into different containers such as cups and bowls and served these cakes to their peers, educators and parents. The children then discovered how well they could cover various toys and materials with the play dough, and began experimenting with small materials like rocks and working up to even bigger things, such as our large dinosaurs! The children practiced covering their objects in play dough while asking their peers to close their eyes, and then guess what was inside the play dough to see if it were big or small. The children were shocked and amazed at how a big piece of play dough could look so soft but yet be covering a hard object like a rock or dinosaur. The children continued this concept with small animal figures as well. The children asked each other “what animal will I find when I open this?” knowing their friend had buried one or several animal figures in the ball of play dough. This discovery led to playful interactions between the children and had them encouraging each other to guess what the play dough could be hiding just by looking at it.
Using loose parts and creative materials, the children poked popsicle sticks through the play dough. Some of the children experimented to see if they could balance some play dough on the popsicle sticks. The children then began to do the same thing with
feathers. Huxley had an idea to create a peacock using the feathers, popsicle sticks and play dough. Paisley C. joined in and together they rolled the play dough into balls to create the peacock’s bodies. As their peers observed Paisley and Huxley’s creations, they wanted to join in and create their own colourful play dough peacocks!
Overall the children have experimented with the play dough in many ways, and this month has offered many wonderful sensory experiences. The children have enjoyed pulling fresh batches of play dough across the table with one another to test how stretchy it is and we have discovered together that adding more salt, oil or flour can completely change the texture and stretchiness. We have used various colours to dye our dough and added so many materials to enhance the learning and play experiences. We are excited to continue exploring sensory and see what else we can add to our play dough to change the look or texture, and see what new creative and imaginative ideas we can come up with together!
