I make homemade playdough often with the children. It is definitely a favorite activity. I think we are stuck in a rut with our playdough accessories though. I have rolling pins (some with texture, some without), garlic presses, and stampers that make impressions in the dough. I also have a gazillion cookie cutters that I put out occasionally. I don't like to have them available too much, though, because while the are a good fine motor material, they definitely hinder creativity. Anyways, the kids either use the cookie cutters or stick craft sticks and pretend it is a birthday cake. I would like to offer some different accessories that will extend their play and get them to be more creative. Any ideas?

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add some hot wheels cars or some animals to them. Today we made "fossils" with our play doh since we are doing a dinosaur theme right now. I even found some dinosaur skeletons that we were able to use to press into the play doh. Sometimes we put play doh out without any "tools" just to get them to be more creative. I have one child who came to the play doh center today for only about 3 minutes because I didn't have the play doh scissors out. All she ever does is cut the play doh into 5000 little pieces. While great for find motor skills she is now 4 1/2 and I'm tired of all the little pieces all over and her not doing anything else with it.

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child friendly scissors

the pieces from a Mr. Potao head

put the playdough in the kitchen/dramatic play area

Any loose parts, really. sticks, stones, rocks, cork, those shiny pebbles from the $ store, bark, pine tree branches...etc.

art supplies too....chenille stems, wood bits, collage materials, etc.

we have number and letter mats too..they roll out the playdough and cover the letters/numbers

check this site out.....

http://www.handsonaswegrow.com/2011/...lay-dough.html

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I have some hotwheel cars in there. They cover the car with the playdoh and design them. I also have books of playdoh ideas, ( i made the book with my own older kids) it has creations that we made and I took pictures of. Flowers, animals, etc. The kids can flip through and see hundreds of ideas and try to copy them.

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My kids love popsicle sticks. They can build some impressive structures by the time they hit 4 and 5.

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