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Use Your Noodle Playdough Play

Playdough Lesson Plans

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Lesson plan developed by Aurora Tollestrup, BS Ed

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Activity:  

Use Your Noodle Playdough Play 

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Age Group:

• Toddlers
• Preschool

Use Your Noodle Playdough Play

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Objectives:  

Children will: 

• use colorful pasta shapes with playdough to encourage curiosity and creative play.  

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CDA Competency Standard: ​

II.5.1a

• Activities encourage curiosity, exploration and discovery
  • a) Activities involve developmentally appropriate, hands-on experiences.

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Materials: 

• uncooked pasta shapes (bowtie, corkscrew, tube shape, etc)
• food coloring
• vinegar
• Ziplock bags
• playdough (we recommend the Basic Dough recipe)  

Play Dough Recipes

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Basic Dough Recipe
**Take precautions when preparing this recipe as it involves the use of hot water**
2 cups of flour
2 Tbsp of oil (vegetable, olive or coconut is fine)
½ cup of salt
2 Tbsp cream of tartar
1 ½ cups boiling water

• Mix the dry ingredients well.
  
• Slowly add the oil and boiling water and mix.
  
• Allow the mixture to cool down and knead until it achieves the desired consistency.

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Procedure: 

To dye the pasta:

• Add desired amount of uncooked pasta to a ziplock bag along with about ¼ cup of vinegar and 10 drops of food coloring.
  
• Seal the bag and mix the vinegar mixture around with the pasta until thoroughly coated.
  
• Allow pasta to stay in the bag for approximately 5 minutes, turning halfway through.
  
• Empty contents of bag onto several layers of paper towels and allow to dry overnight. 

For the activity:

• Place a mound of playdough in the middle of a partitioned tray and add noodles to the other partitions by color.
• Invite children to play with materials and use the noodles to create a sculpture.

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Assessment: 

• Observe and record the children’s experience with the materials. Did the child use the materials in unexpected ways?   

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Click on the photos to enlarge.

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Making Playdough

Toddlers and playdough go together like peanut butter and jelly! Playdough is a fantastic open-ended activity to keep them learning and exploring. The basic use of playdough is to provide a flat surface, playdough material, and tools such as cookies cutters, spreaders, plastic cutting tools and more. These are fantastic open-ended materials that allow children to explore and discover the texture and possibilities of playdough, but don't let that limit you!

Toddlers are constantly learning about their surroundings including the people that are around them. Their social experiences are adding to their knowledge of their world and playdough provides an opportunity to really capitalize on this. Toddlers can work together to share, interact and create with the material. They may imitate their peers playdough play or recreate some of their favorite things.   

Please keep in mind the safety measures that are necessary when creating playdough with children. Never let a child handle boiling water or other hot materials.

• Playdough Recipes

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