Playdough is one of my favourite sensory materials. It lends itself well to all kinds of fine motor practise and leaning opportunities. As you may know by now, learning through sensory play is something I am a big advocate for. This apple tree colour and counting playdough game is a great example of that.
This easy activity is suitable for preschoolers who are just learning these concepts or even for children in Kindergarten or early elementary to help reenforce colour and counting concepts.
Apple Tree Colour and Counting Playdough Game:
Supplies needed:
- red, yellow, green, and brown playdough (you can use store bought or make your own)
- number dice
- colour dot dice
Directions:
- Form the trunk of the tree using brown playdough by rolling it into a long rope. If you don’t have brown playdough, you can mix equal parts orange and blue playdough to create kind of a grey-brown.
- Tear off sections of the green playdough and flatten them out. These will form the leaves of the tree.
- Invite your child to place the leaves on the tree trunk.
- Have your child roll small balls of yellow, red, and green playdough. These will be the apples.
- Set out one colour dot dice and one standard number dice.
- Have the child roll both dice.
- Encourage them to count the number on the dice and name the colour shown on the other dice.
- The child can then add that number of “apples” to the tree in the colour that was rolled.
Sensory and Learning Opportunities:
Through the tearing, shaping, rolling, and squeezing of the playdough, the visual, tactile, and proprioceptive sensory systems are engaged.
Kids get fine motor practise by shaping the small “apples” and carefully placing them on the tree.
This playdough game is a great way to learn or reenforce colours as the child matches what is rolled on the colour block dice to the coloured balls.
Early math skills are worked on both by counting up the numbers on the dice and by counting out the corresponding amount of balls to place on the apple tree.
If more than one child plays this game at a time, it can also work on social skills such as turn taking and encouragement.
Vocabulary and communication are also improved in children by playing games such as these.
Colour Dot Dice
Regular DicePlay-Doh Modelling Compound
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You may also be interested in these playdough activities:
Rainbow Colour and Counting Playdough Game
This sensory play activity is engaging and a wonderful learning opportunity. If your child has seen the movies or read the books, they can recreate scenes or they can just use their imaginations to build their own Peter Rabbit world. They can then act out scenarios with the characters.
KitchenAid Directions:
This activity is so sensory rich. Kids engage their visual, tactile, and proprioceptive sensory systems when they are squishing, moulding, sculpting, shaping, rolling, and pressing the dough and the other items in the invitation to play. If scented playdough is used, then they are also engaging their olfactory sensory system.
This simple activity which also gives fine motor skill practise is great for preschools or home. For older kids, it can be a good way to involve sensory into a unit study.
Directions:
When we first brought home two of our kids from Ethiopia, not only were they trying to learn a new language, they were trying to learn a new alphabet. I tried all of the usual methods to no avail. My kids weren’t making any progress.
Stovetop Directions:
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Sensory and Learning Opportunities:
Playing with playdough also lays foundation for concepts of engineering by allowing children to build and design something that solves a problem. In this case, the problem is how to create a manger scene or tell a story using the materials in front of them.
