Why you should always have play-doh on hand

You've mashed it! Squished it! Rolled it! That wonderfully soft, brilliantly colored dough that is "play"! The essence of most childhood memories will included the stuff and for as little as $0.50 a container at Wal-Mart, you can almost always afford it... Clean up is another story, and another post entirely! But today, I want to remind all of us old' fogies of how much fun play-doh can be. But I'm going to let you in on a very nice little secret! 

Shhh! Don't tell anyone!

Playdoh is a wonderful learning tool and manipulative for more than just odd-makings. I decided that our kindergartener needed some extra development in learning her letter shapes and what better way than with play-doh?!

Using our word processor, I created some large cards with each of the letters of the alphabet, both in capital and lowercase. I laminated them (because we will use them for our daily letter practice, too, and they need to last a while). 

Using Play-doh, she rolls out little snakes, and then places the doh on top of the shape to make the letter -- Viola! Instant manipulative. 

It doesn't stop at letters. You can incorporate this same method into numbers, punctuation marks, 1:1 counting, patterns, shapes, oh gosh - now that I think about it, you could even use the dough as a "calming tool" for when you've just found a mess of doh mushed into your carpet!

Yes! Doh, even in its worst form, is a great way to learn! 

Here's our adventure this week. 

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Find out how great her second week of school went - visit our Youtube Channel for videos and updates! 

Ciao! 
LaVonda