The power of play-dough cannot be underestimated in keeping little hands busy, but did you know there are developmental benefits children get from playing with play-dough?

Here are some potential benefits of playing with play-dough.

Fine motor- making a recipe and manipulating the dough builds children’s eye hand coordination. They use their fingers and hands in child directed play.

Cognitive- children can make the play-dough from a recipe to practice math when they measure ingredients. They use their problem solving skills to experiment and discover what they can do. Children can create cool things with their dough. Children exercise their imagination when playing and creating.

Communication- children use their receptive language skills to understand what others are saying when they do the activity with others, and use their expressive language skills when the communicate with others.

Here is my favorite recipe for homemade play-dough with only 4 simple ingredients.

2 cups flour

1/2 cup salt

2 teaspoons of vegetable oil

1/2-3/4 warm water

Do this: Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Then add the oil and water. If you want, you can add essential oil and/or food coloring.

Have fun with children when making and playing with homemade play-dough.