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CURRICULUM AND LEARNING DEVELOPMENT * 5 HOURS *
​PROGRAM PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT * 5 HOURS * LEVEL 2

Playdough in the Classroom

Page 9

School-Age Playdough

School-age children are creating complicated things with playdough and are able to use some of the more intricate properties that playdough allows. Playdough lends itself very well to various STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) concepts and school-age children are at a developmentally appropriate stage to explore more complicated versions of playdough play.

​Teachers and caregivers can guide the direction of school-age playdough play to make it most beneficial for the group. Playdough play in a school-age program looks more like an exploration of various topics. Instead of rolling the dough into snakes and stacking chunks on top of one another, children are building complicated structures, participating in group imaginative play with rules and expectations, and much more.
School-age children will enjoy recreating literary scenes from popular children’s books using playdough. Literary concepts can be assessed and stories can be retold. Children can also use playdough as a means of creative expression and for social and emotional development. Many teachers have playdough available for their students for various reasons, and it may be because of the versatility of the material. 
Younger school-age children especially enjoy participating in social play where specific game rules apply and all members of the playgroup are expected to abide by them. This play creates a realistic and engaging opportunity for children to learn social skills as well as create a sense of community. When playdough is involved in this play it allows children to further perfect their social and interactive skills with the group. Combine this with academic concepts for a new level of playdough learning.
​Older school-age children will be up for the challenge of building and creating purposeful structures with the provided materials. Playdough can be combined with various objects to pose a challenge in engineering and STEM concepts. Challenge a group to develop a plan for building a platform capable of holding a textbook. Present the materials and opportunity for children to create a stop-motion playdough animation movie. Ask them to develop an experiment using playdough. Create several variations of a playdough recipe and ask students to compare their texture, elasticity, pliability and more.