We've been playing with play dough a lot lately, it's such an easy activity to get out for kids to play with and it suits both children at their different ages and stages of development. We're always looking for fun ways to play with it, and lately we're loving these rolling pins that Ivy got for her birthday!

What you'll need:

• play dough (shop bought or homemade, our favourite recipe is this one for Kool Aid play dough)
• play dough rollers

The kids love playing with play dough, they always come running over when I get it out, and they love using it in new and different ways.  Sometimes I think that I can complicate things by giving them too many tools, so it's nice sometimes to simplify and just have rolling pins to make patterns and textures in the dough.



The kids can work on those fine motor skills and building up strength in their little fingers by rolling the play dough into a big ball and then using the roller to press it down and make the patterns on it.  Then they repeat the whole process and do it over and over again!



Once they've made the pattern they naturally just stop to explore the texture with their fingers, running them over the raised parts and indents.  Sometimes we just leave it at that, or to extend the play you can bring in little cars or other vehicles to use the textures like roads.



This is part of the Tools for Learning series, for more fun ideas with play dough tools take a look at these fantastic posts!





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