Apple Theme Playdough Center

Playdough is a staple in our toddler and preschool classroom! During our apple theme we worked on fine motor strengthening with playdough tools and apple cookie cutters and small fake apples. Let me show you the fun we had! Watch the video: In fact, I have a whole collection of toddler fine motor ideas in this post! The hands get quite a work out while squeezing and pulling playdough, and we always provide an assortment of tools that also involve the fine motor muscles. Before children start writing, it’s important to strengthen the hands and fingers, and playdough is one of my favorite ways of doing this. Plus, the playdough center is one of the easiest to set up! We keep everything in a small bin that makes set up a breeze. Watch: Playdough Favorites in Our Classroom Before the children arrive, I put a ball of playdough at each spot (I often use these mirrors in place of mats) and scatter the assorted cookie cutters and tools.

If you’ve taught two year olds, you know how they love to carry everything around. Playdough included. And they are fast! Even with us keeping an eye on this area, all it takes is for us to get distracted and a ball of playdough will “somehow” land in another area of the room. As the school year progresses, this isn’t as much of an issue. But it’s important to establish the rule right from the start and be very consistent. I cannot tell you how many pairs of shoes ended up with playdough on their soles and then rubbed into our area rugs!

The children love to roll the playdough and press items in it, in this case apple cookie cutters and small apples. Sometimes we will bring out a little pretend wooden microwave, place it on the playdough table, and use it as a pretend oven. We will provide small baking pans and plates that they will put their creations on before putting it all in the oven. Our two year olds are introduced to scissors a bit later in the school year.

Length of Use

I am often asked how long we use a batch of playdough. We usually make a new batch with every theme, so that’s about two weeks. We change the color depending on what our theme is, as well as the themed materials.

Clean Up

When centers time is over, we place the playdough in a Zip-Lock baggie and everything goes in a bin that is stored on top of our cabinet, ready for the next day!