Play-dough Guessing Game

Today, a few of the kids and I were playing with play-dough. We had out cookie cutters, rolling pins, a fake plastic knife and little plates. We started out making cupcakes. Once we got bored with that, I started making stars which kept getting smashed and ripped apart by a little girl I’ll call Kay. Every time I’d make a star, she’d ask if she could have it but then would destroy it. This quickly became a game and it was fun!
She’s one of the youngest in my group so I decided to test her on her shapes. First, I made a triangle which she guessed correctly. Then I made an oval which she thought was a circle. I told her it was close, but told her that it was an oval. It was a new word for her so she repeated it a couple of times. Then I made a square, but didn’t have a cookie cutter for that shape so it kept coming out crooked. I asked her if she knew what it was, but she wasn’t sure. I didn’t blame her for that one, but I told her I was trying to make a square and she repeated the word, “square?” I said, “Yes, it’s a square, but it was a little messed up.” After making some more stars and attempting to make a door out of a cookie cutter that she had picked out, we got back to shapes. I tested her on the oval again, but this time she had decided that it was a cake. I didn’t correct her this time because it could’ve been a cake or anything she wanted. Kay is one of those little girls who has a mind of her own and I like to encourage that.

The cookie cutter play-dough activity can also be good with letters and numbers if you have those cookie cutters. You make the letter cutout and then they can guess what it is. If they are helping you, it’s even better. If you don’t have the cookie cutters, just role the play-dough out into snake shapes and then make the letters and numbers from that. You don’t have to have an activity in mind with play-dough though. The best part of play-dough is that they can use their imagination and create anything.