Simple Playdough Provocation: Cool Down Series

This is the second post in the after school cool down series. This is my attempt to find some great child driven and process focused activities to help the kids transition back into the home after school…instead of us all running around manically screaming, grabbing, pushing, teasing and melting down.

I have a great collection of caps, saved from milk jugs, water and juice bottles, and fruit sauce crushers. We’ve just made playdough with my favorite playdough recipe, and I think, how cool to combine the two. We’ve never done that before.

I flatten two colors on the table to make a very large slab. I put some of the caps in a pretty box and set some rolling pins on the side. I leave this at the table for the kids to discover.

Playdough is always a nice option for calming free play. Making the dough, manipulating the dough with the small muscles in hands, playing pretend food or roads with playdough and adding objects to the table, like cars, kitchen tools or recycled materials.

My predition: The kids will asthetically arrange the plastic objects around the slab and make up stories while they work.
What happens: They use the caps like cookie cutters and stamp out shapes collecting the pieces on the side.