Star Gazing Provocation

St. Patrick’s Day provocation

Texture inspired provocation

Frozen inspired provocation

This month the EEC would like to invite you and your families to explore with playdough!

Playdough has been a long standing activity that enhances all areas of development from cognitive to fine motor. Children experience the full range of movement with this activity completely unaware of the development occurring! For this reason, the EEC has playdough on hand for children on a weekly basis because we know that learning opportunities can be endless. Let’s take a look at some examples…

1. Star Gazing Provocation – Often children will be their own investigators where they can dig deeper into something they are genuinely interested in such as learning more about space and the stars. These children were inspired by glitter, cookie cutters and color!
2. St. Patrick’s Day provocation – This is another great idea for promoting fine motor skills, attention, eye-hand coordination, pencil grip, and spatial awareness. In this picture, the child is experimenting with design, curiosity, cause and effect and patience!
3. Texture inspired provocation – Play dough wouldn’t be fun without more textures. So, why not add feathers? Playdough is one of those awesome tools that children can use to mold and shape to their hearts desire. Therefore, we have a 3-D cupcake turkey!
4. Frozen inspired provocation – In this picture, we see children experimenting with additional materials to enhance creativity and imagination. Although added objects are not necessary, they do help to scaffold ideas such as creating a birthday cake which then turns into a garden.

The EEC hopes that you find these activities helpful especially during the pandemic or just a rainy day! Feel free to reach out anytime for more activities to enrich your child’s development or check out our monthly EEC Newsletter for more awesome inspired ideas.

Here is the recipe we use. It makes the BEST playdough that’s long lasting.

Ingredients

1 cup flour

½ cup salt

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 cup water

2 tablespoons oil

1 tsp food coloring or water color

Directions

Combine 1 cup flour, ½ cup of salt and 2 teaspoons cream of tartar in a large saucepan. Gradually stir in 1 cup water mixed with 2 tablespoons oil and 1 teaspoon food coloring or water color. Cook over medium to high heat, stirring constantly until a ball forms. Remove from heat, cool and knead until smooth on wax paper. Store in an airtight container.