Play dough patterns

We got the play dough out that I made the other week again.

I wanted to something different than our usual 'lets get the cutters and rollers out and play' sessions so decided to include our plastic animals and dinosaurs.

I wanted Alex to see the different patterns and shapes they would make when pushed and pressed into the dough. I wanted him to try and see the different shapes of the footprints too.

First we just created a bit of a scene with the play dough being the ground and I just let him have a bit of free play.

Then I encouraged him to make foot prints and imprints of the whole animals. We talked about the different textures they left, for instance, rough, scaly, smooth, and talked about the different shapes, like the snakes being wiggly not straight, but it having straight lines for it's pattern.

This interested him for a short while and I must admit didn't entertain him for as long as I thought it would.

But he continued to then play in his own way, rolling up dinosaurs in the dough and rescuing them by digging and cutting them out with a plastic knife. This was great fun for him!

I then cut out some face shapes that happened to be on the back of one of Alex's many Easter egg boxes, and he had loads of fun making funny faces with this.

At dinner time the animals were still out, James then asked questions to Alex about whether the animals/dinosaurs ate meat or vegetables, surprisingly Alex got quite a few of the answers right and I would never have thought of asking this myself so it was nice for some new ideas!