It’s spring here in the UK, and all the bugs are slowly waking up, despite the cool temperatures we’re still experiencing. We’ve been making changes to our garden, as it’s the first spring in our home. When digging out borders and weeding we have come across a few creepy crawlies in our planting borders. This prompted me to think the kids would enjoy making play dough bugs!
Play dough is a staple here in our house as it’s such a beneficial early years resource, I have my own play dough business and the kids quite simply love to get out the dough box! As part of simple, tactile play it can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, flattened, chopped, cut, scored, raked, punctured, poked, and shredded! Each one of these different actions aids fine motor development in a different way, not to mention hand-eye coordination and general concentration.
First up is the Dough
We dislike the well-known shop-bought stuff in our house. The smell, the plastic tins and the consistency just don’t work for us! It can be pretty simple to make your own so we have included our recipe for basic play dough. If you’re after something a bit more luxurious and don’t have the time or inclination to make the dough, then head to my Etsy store here or click through the shopping trolley icon, over on my blog homepage banner.
Benefits of Dough Play
There are many benefits to sensory dough play, so this activity will tick educational and developmental boxes all whilst being really fun! When they get busy making play dough bugs, they’re warming up all those tiny muscles and tendons in their hands. This all helps build on their pencil and scissor control.
Investigating how to make bugs will see them explore the dough by rolling, squeezing, squashing, cutting, poking, and shredding. What a marvellous sensory experience for them!
Invitation to Play
Setting up an invitation to play tray, either indoors or outdoors is a fab way to get kids to investigate and explore how to put loose parts together to come up with an end creation. Having loose-part dough play can not only extend the play session but also open up discussions and investigations into counting, ordering, colours and shapes. They always surprise me and mostly take their creations down a path I would have never expected!
How to set up the invitation to play?
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This time we have used a picky plate that we use to serve snacks on at home! After all, it will just wash up and be ready for snack use another day. Alternatively, you could collect glass jars and use them to house some loose parts and store them for another day’s play. Using scoopers like these wooden scoopers is a really helpful way to practice scooping and pouring different objects. This action will again develop their fine motor skills whilst working on space and measurement for mathematics.
Having a play tray from Ikea or a tuff tray could also work. The loose parts could be scattered around for them to arrange and order whilst creating.
Lastly, you could give them the autonomy to work out how they want their invitation to play to look like, by creating it themselves. They could help find bits and bobs from the kitchen, garden, and craft area to make up their own invitation to play.
What is in our Invitation to Play Tray
- Variety of shells for making snails.
- Twigs
- Leaves / Grass
- Dried chickpeas/ beans – make for fab plastic-free googly eyes
- Dried spaghetti
- Little stones and seaglass
- Rolling pin
- Garlic Press
Additional ideas for making play dough Bugs
- Flowers
- Bark
- Pinecones
- Moss
- Pasta Shells
- Lollipop sticks
- Craft matchsticks
- Toy Bugs
- Straws
- Fabric / netting / ribbons
- Log slices
Extending the Activity with more Bug Themed Play
Often the children simply find their own ways to steer their play in another direction. However, if you’re looking for more bug-themed play then here are a few ideas.
Bug Fossils / Tracks
We used our Melissa and Doug bugs linked below to expand our play dough activity. Using our sumptuous chocolate dough which you can purchase from our store or alternatively add cocoa powder to our basic dough recipe linked at the start of this post.
Go on a Bug Hunt
Use our free-to-download colouring in printable bug scavenger sheet
Hungry Caterpillar Play Ideas
We have several caterpillar-inspired activities in this post!
We hope to have inspired you to create some of your own creepy crawlies!
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