At KCCC we use a variety of sensory manipulatives to encourage our students development. The children love to help make playdough, slime, colored rice and moon sand. Below are the benefits of using sensory dough in the classroom.
Enhances fine motor skill
When your child squishes, rolls, flattens, shapes, scores or cuts play dough, he develops and strengthen his hand muscles. The strengthened hand muscles helps improve fine motor skills of your child
Improves pre-writing skills
When children play with play dough, their pincer grip (the squeezing of pointer finger and thumb to grasp an object) improves. An improved pincer grip enhances your child’s pre-writing skills
Creativity and imagination
Play-dough provides your child with unlimited possibilities of molding the dough into food, animals, decorations, flowers etc. It encourages your child to use their imagination and inspires creativity. If your child uses various shapes, rolling pins and other tools while playing with play dough it further improves their creative imagination.
Is your child often restless and finds it difficult to express his emotions? Give them some play dough to play. Sitting at one place and squishing and squashing of play dough will have a very calming and soothing effect on them. It will also provide them with a great option to express their emotions.
Develops hand – eye coordination
Use of variety of shapes and rolling pins while playing with play-dough will improve your child’s hand-eye-coordination
When your child plays with play-dough along with other students or you they will interact, talk, discuss problems and find solutions to creating great works of art and craft with play dough. Thus, playing with play dough will enhance your child’s social skills
Increases curiosity and knowledge
When your child mixes 2 different color dough together and discover a new color or when they learn to mold play dough in different shapes, it encourages their curiosity and they will ask various questions which helps increase their knowledge and helps overall development. So the next time your child requests you to play with play dough, not only encourage them, participate in their play along with them.
KCCC’s DIY Recipes
2tsp Cream of Tartar
1/3 C Salt
1T Vegetable Oil
Combine all the ingredients in a 2qt saucepan. Stir and mix over medium heat. Keep stirring until it starts getting a little solid and doesn’t stick to sides of the pan. It will look very sticky and gooey. Take it out of the pan and knead it on the counter. Do this until it’s the right consistency for you.
8 Cups of flour
1 Cup of baby oil
Mix in a large bowl until the correct consistency. Really soft and easy to clean up!
Pour 1C glue into a bowl
Add 1 T Baking Soda
Add 3 drops of food coloring
Add 1 T of contact lens solution
Continue to add contact lens solution and mix until your get desired consistency.