• Menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

Little Bins Members

Little Bins for Little Hands

Simple Science and STEM for Every Day

Header Right

  • STEM
    • Jr Engineer
    • Coding
    • STEM CHALLENGES
  • Science Activities
    • Environmental Science
    • Physics
    • Geology
    • Space
    • Ocean
    • Weather
    • Rainbows
  • Seasonal
    • Fall
    • Halloween
    • Thanksgiving
    • Winter
    • Christmas
    • Valentine’s Day
    • Spring
    • St Patricks Day
    • Easter
    • Earth Day
    • Summer
    • 4th of July
  • Art
    • Famous Artists
    • Process Art
    • 10+ Easy Homemade Paint Recipes For Kids
  • Slime
  • LEGO
  • Shop
  • Join
    • Little Bins Club
    • Library Club

Mobile Menu

  • STEM
    • Jr Engineer
    • Coding
    • STEM CHALLENGES
  • Science Activities
    • Environmental Science
    • Physics
    • Geology
    • Space
    • Ocean
    • Weather
    • Rainbows
  • Seasonal
    • Fall
    • Halloween
    • Thanksgiving
    • Winter
    • Christmas
    • Valentine’s Day
    • Spring
    • St Patricks Day
    • Easter
    • Earth Day
    • Summer
    • 4th of July
  • Art
    • Famous Artists
    • Process Art
    • 10+ Easy Homemade Paint Recipes For Kids
  • Slime
  • LEGO
  • Shop
  • Join
    • Little Bins Club
    • Library Club

Play Dough Fine Motor Skills & Proprioception Sensory Input

Play Dough Play

 Fine Motor Fridays Blog Hop

Play Dough Sensory Input & Fine Motor Skills

[pinit]

Perfect For Proprioception Sensory Input & Fine Motor Skills

Welcome to another great week of the Fine Motor Fridays Blog Hop! I love Fridays and our chance to show off some great fine motor activities for kids happening over here! Hands-on play really facilitates fine motor skills work. Learn through play, practice through play, and develop life long skills through play! Fine Motor Skills for us is hand work, strengthening the hand muscles and working on finger grips/grasps that will prove so useful as he gets older!

How Is Play Dough Great For Sensory Input & Fine Motor Skills?

Kneading, rolling, punching, smoothing, flattening, and other ways your child may manipulate play dough are awesome for proprioception sensory input as well as strengthening hand muscles. Proprioception is simply,  sensations surrounding joints and muscles to bring about awareness of the body. Liam really enjoys lots of pushing, pulling and heavy movements. I have really begun to notice this during his play dough play and how he uses his play dough. While he is getting much needed sensory input he is also strengthening his hand muscles for all important fine motor activities. (Please note that play dough is of course a tactile sensory play material too so make sure your child is comfortable playing with it. Start with a small amount if you are unsure.)

What Have I noticed About Our Play Dough Play?

  • Liam ENJOYS using his rolling pins, hammers and other play dough tools the most! Especially this big heavy one we have!
  • Liam ENJOYS smooshing and digging through play dough or burying things deep in the play dough to find afterwards.
  • Liam ENJOYS flattening play dough and pushing it out if it is placed in a pan. He enjoys standing over it and pushing down hard on it.
  • Liam LIKES to fill up dough extruders and push with all his might to get the dough out
  • Liam does not care for cookie cutters to cut out shapes
  • Liam does not care to decorate play dough.
  • Liam does not care to sculpt with play dough
  • Liam LOVES big movements and a big hunk of play dough is perfect!

How We Make Play Dough Work For Us!

I have stopped trying to make play dough set ups that don’t really work out. I have started providing him with the tools he needs to really enjoy his play dough experience and get from it what he needs. He gets proprioception sensory  input and I get him to work on fine motor skills! Here’s our latest set up and he was so excited by all our rainbow play dough!

Play Dough Sensory & Fine Motor Skills Tray Set Up

I love to make my own play dough. We used to buy it but it never does the job. I love the way ours feels and looks and smells! All our awesome play dough tools are easy to find, and I always keep them handy!

 

Play Dough Sensory & Fine Motor Tray Set Up

Play Dough Proprioception Sensory Input Play

He rolled, flattened and smooshed each color into the cookie sheet! We have a selection of rollers and hammers to use but he also loves his hands as tools!

Play Dough Proprioception Sensory input

Play Dough Fine Motor Play

This is a great activity for color sorting and working on fine motor skills. Picking up buttons and pushing them into the different colors and burying them was lots of fun. This was a nice independent play activity while I was working around the kitchen or at my computer. He chatted about hiding them and such.

Play Dough Sensory Input & Fine Motor Skills Button Pushing

When he was all done, he had to find them all and essentially clean up the activity. Lots of pulling and pushing the play dough around to find all the buttons. Great proprioception sensory input and finger grasp skills as he removed the buttons!

I feel happy that I have found out what he really enjoys to do with play dough. Play dough is such a great and easy resource to keep on hand for all types of play!

15 More Play Dough Play Ideas 

15 Simple PLay Dough Ideas

Fine Motor Fridays Blog Hop

FMF2

 

Sensory Nest Building from Still Playing School

Painting with Carrot Shavings from House of Burke

Loose Parts Play For Toddlers from Powerful Mothering

Ultimate Guide To Scissor Cutting Resources from Lalymom

 

Amazon Links Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate Associate. I receive a small compensation for any purchases through my site. ALL my activities are always free and fun! 

  

Follow Little Bins For Little Hands’s board Easter for Kids on Pinterest.  Follow Sarah McClelland’s board Fine Motor Skills Activities on Pinterest.

Previous Post: « 20 Repurposed Reused and Recycled Activities To Create & Recreate Play
Next Post: Fizzy Baking Soda Earth Day Science Experiment »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Still Playing School

    April 11, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    I especially love the color sorting!

  2. Sarah

    April 11, 2014 at 5:41 pm

    I’d love to get my hands on some of those wood hammers & wood shapes etc for pressing into the playdough…..do you remember where you found them?

  3. Samantha @ Stir the Wonder

    April 11, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    I think Liam and Caden play with play dough in similar ways. Caden is always hiding little objects in his play dough and loves mixing the colors. I’ve had to get over that last part 😉

  4. Carla

    April 11, 2014 at 8:32 pm

    I love your play dough tool kit!!

  5. Laura @ Lalymom

    April 11, 2014 at 9:18 pm

    Wow what a great play dough tray! Even I want to go play with that! I need to get my daughter working with those kinds of tools!

  6. Sara

    April 12, 2014 at 3:50 pm

    The play dough tray is wonderful! My children love playing with play dough also, although they prefer to roll it out and use cookie cutters over sculpting. I love adding small toy animals to their play dough options, but never thought of buttons. Great idea!

Primary Sidebar

We have a PASSION for SLIME, and are dedicated to helping you make the best slime ever. Questions? Just ask us!

We also LOVE science and all things STEM. Join us on our journey to discover just how cool science can be. Want to know how to get started? Click on any of the images or menu options!

Site Footer

Sign Me Up!

Take our FREE 5-Day STEM Challenge with boredom busting activity ideas for kids!

Privacy Policy