Play-Doh is great fun and maybe you’ve wondered about the other benefits of playing with Play-Doh? Well, wonder no more – we’ve identified 10 amazing benefits of getting stuck into Play-Doh.
- Improves self-esteem
You can poke it, pat it, squash it and squeeze it. There is no right or wrong way to use Play-Doh. This helps to develop your child’s self-esteem, as they can’t ‘get it wrong’. Whatever your child produces is a positive achievement.
- Stimulates imagination
As Play-Doh is a sculpting material, your child has free rein over what their imagination creates. Your child can create whatever you want with Play-Doh – a sausage, a seal or a spider. Then, they can play with ‘toys’ they originated and made themselves.
- Encourages experiments with pressure and texture
The tactile experience of playing with Play-Doh works on many levels with a child’s sense of touch. They can create and feel the textures they make, then explore applying varying amounts of pressure to create these textures. Play-Doh responds to even the lightest of touches.
As children increasingly use mobile devices and tablets, the ability to build their sense of pressure and perform screen gestures becomes more important as part of modern life.
- Strengthens motor skills
Play-Doh strengthens both fine and gross motor skills and allows children to experiment with gentle and powerful touch. In our classes, we see lots of children strengthening their hands, through the range of textures and tools that are used. The Play-Doh sessions give children a great opportunity flex their creative muscles in many ways.
- Develops self-expression
Play-Doh is all about self-expression, so it can be really therapeutic for children who may not be able to express the range of feelings they’re experiencing, in words.
- Promotes stress relief
Rather like one of those squeezy stress balls, Play-Doh can be stress-relieving for children.
- Improves hand-eye co-ordination
Using tools like the extruder, cutters or scissors supports a child’s development of hand-eye co-ordination, which benefits them in all kinds of activities from sports to brushing their teeth.
- Enriches your child’s education
A fun way to build on your child’s education is to experiment with mixing colours, making shapes, letters or numbers – the possibilities are limitless.
- Develops social and communication skills
Once your child is creating or has completed their project, discussing it with an adult or child, develops their social and communication skills.
We are very proud of our partnership with Play-Doh and will be running ‘Play-Doh Imagination Classes’ to help foster co-operative play, as children share colours or work together to build a creation, such as layering or decorating a cake.
- Encompasses a wide age range
Play-Doh also appeals to a wide age range of children and our classes cover ages 2-8 years old.
To enjoy all the amazing benefits of playing with Play-Doh, sign up to the Play-Doh Imagination Classes at a Creation Station near you and you’ll get:
- free Play-Doh
- to take home your child’s creation
- a Play-Doh activity booklet
- to enter our Play-Doh competition
- to know that your child is experiencing these benefits
During 17th to 28th October 2016, we will be running Play-Doh ‘Open A Tub Of Imagination’ classes for children, at 800 locations around the UK. Join in ‘The Great British Play-Doh Tea Party’ classes and inspire your child with their own unique ‘Cake-Off’ creations.
Plus, you can enjoy ‘Squishy, Squashy, Spooky Halloween Fun’ classes – inspire your child with their own spooky monster creations.
To find your closest class all you need to do is leave a comment, email us here, visit our website and put in your postcode, or call Creative Hub Head Office on 01395 239 700.
And remember – you could be a winner! Enter our Facebook competition to win yourself a Play-Doh Ice Cream Castle and some tubs of Play-Doh. Like our Facebook page and post a picture of your Play-Doh creation using the #PlayDohCreation – we’re looking forward to seeing what your child creates!
Enjoy Creative Fun 