In addition to the above play dough tray ideas, there are several play dough kit ideas online ideal for the traveling therapist who needs to move throughout several buildings or homes. These kits are the perfect engagement tool, easily transported wherever you end up seeing a child for therapy. Play dough can target many areas of skill development. Tons of inspirational ideas can be found online. There are many creative individuals online who share awesome ideas for play dough fun. As therapists, you can take those fun ideas and add your Occupational Therapy (OT) eye to build the skills a child needs for their specific development. When using play dough with no right or wrong way to play, play it is the perfect tool for social interaction without competition. Learning tool Play dough helps build multiple fine motor skills, while promoting play, as it instantly provides multi-sensory hands-on interaction. Children who are tactile seekers love to engage with play dough, and instantly begin squishing, squeezing, and molding it.

If you want a fun way to encourage play dough engagement, it can be fun to add a weekly or monthly theme to therapy sessions way to facilitate hand actions, for play dough manipulation, including tool use.Just use play dough in each session and switch out the manipulatives, cookie cutters, or items to hide in the play dough. Play dough can be used as a relaxing medium that provides calm and quiet time for children who are feeling anxious or stressed and need a break away from the noise and the action. Be considerate of the smell of play dough. Some love it, while others can not tolerate this familiar smell.Rolling a play dough snake is particularly effective for developing bilateral coordination skills. In many functional tasks, both hands do symmetrical task (buttoning a shirt, pulling up pants, jumping rope, etc. When rolling a lump of play dough with the hands together, one needs to use the same amount of pressure or force with both hands, and move the playdough together at the same time. Otherwise, the play dough snake is lopsided, or thin on one end and not the other.

There are many cool play dough tray ideas and inspiration for other themed activities that will make your play dough table the coolest table in the school building. Use a kit, tray, or a few cookie cutters, and you’ve got an instant engagement tool that allows for conversation and creation, while building that important therapeutic relationship. Get out a set of Mr. Potato Head pieces and work on pressing these into the dough to make a funny character.If learners seem tired of routine fine motor and visual motor activities, adding these super fun play dough game boards and cards to your OT Toolbox will keep kids engaged, while building their skills. Learners of all ages and stages can reap the benefits of play dough. As an adult, don’t you still enjoy the squishing, squeezing, and molding fun using play dough?

If you are looking for ideas for therapeutic sessions, try these fun fine motor play dough activities to encourage fine motor skill development and hand strengthening throughout the year. Eye-hand connection is developed when using cookie cutters to cut playdough, and add accessories to decorate. Using stampers or objects to press into the dough to make images or scenes, can further build eye-hand coordination. Play dough can be used for gross motor development also. Include playdough in an obstacle course as a stop between obstacles, or gross motor exercises. Add different textures such as salt, glitter, beads, rice, to add more tactile input for your sensory seeker. Still another idea is to match colors with play dough using small objects and different colors of play dough.Using play dough can be great for the sensory seeker who loves texture. Those who seek out heavy work through the hands can benefit from Use playdough as a creative way to practice math skills and concepts, or use it to mold and shape letters to work on handwriting. Play dough is the perfect tool for kids to work on important eye-hand connection skills. Learners utilize hand-eye coordination to poke, cut, smash, and pinch the play dough. This set comes with a convenient wooden board, which can be used as a play surface, and two mini rolling pins. The rolling pins feature a revolving center section, which allows children to effortlessly work the pin through the play dough without having to turn their hands continuously.