Inspire Creativity with Play-Doh Compound
Imagination is the foundation of creativity, and creativity is essential in developing problem-solving skills and emotional intelligence later in life. A global study, Imagination is a Superpower, conducted by our friends at Hasbro, Inc., found that parents believe fostering imaginative skills in their child is beneficial for both their child’s present and future. And teachers agree.
Play-Doh compound is a fun, hands-on tool that encourages open-ended play and imagination. Not only do students love using it, but it promotes fine motor skill development, provides sensory engagement, and encourages social skills. Download the Play-Doh activities below and comment on which is your favorite!
Play-Doh Classroom Activities
Narrative Molding: Get your students’ creativity flowing by having them create and write about a new animal species they create with Play-Doh compound.
Subject area: Science, Art, SEL, English Language Arts
Subtraction Smash: Practice subtraction facts using Play-Doh modeling compound as a visual aid.
Subject area: Math
Color Mixing: Use Play-Doh compound to introduce students to the amazing concept of color mixing.
Subject area: Art, Science
Build the Strongest Shelter: Put students’ STEM skills to work by having them build their strongest hurricane shelter using Play-Doh compound.
Subject area: STEM, Science, Art
Solar System Modeling: Use Play-Doh compound to bring the solar system to life.
Subject area: Science, STEM, Art
For even more inspiration be sure to check out How 100 Teachers Use Play-Doh In Their Classroom! Need activities for older students? Check out How Teachers Use Play-Doh for Middle School and Beyond.
84 Comments for Inspire Creativity with Play-Doh Compound
Play-Doh can be used in numerous way to model different math operations.
It is amazing how many different ways play-doh can be used in learning.
I had never thought to use Play-Doh in my third grade classroom. After reading these ideas I am seeing all sorts of activities that I could bring this into our learning environment!
What a great opportunity to receive the 50 cans of Play-Doh for my classroom. I teach ELL (English Language Learners) and many of them our new to the country. I have used Play-Doh with my students to form shapes, letters, animals, etc. to help them improve their speech and language abilities as they learn new words about new concepts. My students truly enjoy squishing, smashing, and rolling the Play-Doh while doing activities in the classroom. They always have a positive experience when using Play-Doh for learning.
We use play-doh at our school and the students create the brain with it.
I use Play-Doh to model organs and organ systems in my anatomy class!
My middle schoolers love Play-Doh! They ask for it to be added to my prize bin and they become very competitive trying to win it. They trade colors and containers when they win.
I love Play-Doh even in my HS classrooms. We use it for science modeling.
Loving these ideas/lesson plans to use for play based learning.
ILOVE the cross curricular activities here! Thank you Play-Doh for the great ideas!
We love using play dough to apply our fine motor skills, language and socialization.
PlayDoh is so important for play in a child’s learning. Especially in the kindergarten classroom. We can use it to practice building our names, to scissors practice, to even using it to help us add and substract in math. We love PlayDoh!
Love the solar system modeling to incorporate play-doh into science!
I really like the idea of using Play-Doh to build the strongest shelter for STEM. I think this is something students could design at the beginning of a unit without any background knowledge. They could create sketches of their design, test their prototype, make changes as they learn new content and collect data in a log book which could also include other subject areas such as Math and ELA.
Love these ideas so much and I love how Play-doh helps my students with fine motor activities
These are great ideas for using Play-Doh in schools! I teach ELA, and I can’t wait to use some of these activities.
We played Subtraction Smash and the students had so much fun! It was great to see them make connections and be able to solve problems quickly!
I love the ways Play-Doh can be incorporated into STEM activities in school. This fits in well with the NGSS
Play-Doh is even a great medium for use with Makey-Makey to use with unplugged circuit activities or coding activities!
High school students are hands-on learners too! Having them utilize Play-doh to represent abstract ideas, concepts from poetry, or even just as a fidget during class can help them focus on the lesson and connect their reading with the world at their finger tips.
This gives me many ideas for class.
I love using Play-doh in my classroom for fine motor activities at the beginning of the year. We use it late to form letters and numbers.
I love the idea of using Play Doh with Math! I think I could use the same idea with Multiplication in 4th Grade!
I can’t wait to try these in my classroom!
I love the STEM idea of building the strongest building and testing them out. I’d love to try this with my gifted groups.
Playdoh is such a fun medium that we use daily in my kindergarten classroom! It helps strengthen their fine motors while also making learning fun and engaging! We use it when decoding words, building letters/words, numbers or representing numbers, with addition and subtraction, and just for fun! Definitely a must have!
I use Play-Doh to make stop-motion videos. The students love molding the Play-Doh into characters that become alive throught the animation.
I love the idea of using Play-Doh for engineering in STEM class. We often use cardboard, so using Play-Doh would be a fun and engaging way to switch it up.
Can’t wait to try the writing narrative project!
I love the Solar System Modeling idea. It goes along with my technique of students sculpting scenes and then doing a gallery walk where they have to write captions in the Target Language, using the vocab we are practicing.
Such great ideas. I love incorporating hands-on fun activities to teach concepts. Kids will enjoy this!
We will be using Play-Doh in March to help build our 3D shapes.
Our class is currently studying natural disasters. Today they had to use grid paper to draw their home floor plan and then create escape routes in case of a fire. I would love to use this activity when we study hurricanes.
Use Play-Doh compound to introduce Pre K students to the amazing concept of color mixing is my favorite. The amazement on their faces – PRICELESS!
These are great activities! Thanks for sharing.
I love the idea of using play-dough for math! My third grade class enjoys using it in small groups to explore fractions! Play-dough is great for kinesthetic learning!!
This is awesome. My students love hands on activities. It really helps all my special education students learn concepts.
I teach high school SpEd and could definitely see the following used in my classroom.
1. Narrative molding. I think this one would be great for my class as it seems it could be easily differentiated. It would allow all students to be engaged.
2. Subtraction smash. This would allow my students to have a tactile element added to the lesson.
I love the idea of narrative modeling
I used Play-Doh to create ancient Sumerian City-States. The kids loved it!
I never thought about using play-doh but found the topics and subtraction smash interesting!
I love the narrative molding to go along with our first grade narrative unit!
My ESOL students love expressing themselves by using Play-Doh compound in the classroom, as oftentimes they cannot express themselves in English.
In middle school science, Play-Doh is helpful when building models. We use it for creating a model of acid rain – using Play-Doh and copper pieces. We can also use Play-Doh when creating models of body system, or atoms to show conservation of mass during chemical reactions.
Play-doh is my goto for multisensory education for extra support. We can design and build letters, numbers, characters, and landscapes for a variety of subjects.
I have not thought about using Play-doh as a tool for “checking for understanding.” I like the different ideas here. I teach 9th grade ELA, but they still like to do “hands-on-activities” like these. I will definitely try to incorporate some of these in my classroom. I will add Play-doh to my teacher list!
I love using play-doh for my kids! It’s an awesome way to keep their hands busy while teaching, and not as loud or distracting as most fidgets. It’s also great for activities and integration into almost all areas!
Playdoh is great! It’s not just for elementary age students, it is a great resource for my high school anatomy students to have hands on based learning to learn about the body
I like the idea of mixing colors with Play-Doh vs paint. I think they would really enjoy seeing how colors can be made.
I like the strongest structure activity. I am a STEM teacher and this would fit into that. I like all of the ideas though for something to do with my niece when we are playing together.
As a reading intervention teacher, my students use play dough to form their upper and lower case letters.
I love the idea of character modeling using Play-Doh! What a great way to get students using their creativity while also bringing their visions to life!
Play-Doh is a great learning tool! It’s tactile, great for sensory input, and it encourages creativity and science. LOVE IT!!
Most of the activities are for younger children, but I’d like to sound the alarm for high school students! Using Play-Doh as a sensory tool for mindfulness, breathing techniques, and even writing activities helps to break barriers and get students outside of their comfort zone.
Being a first year teacher, these are awesome tools for adding a hands on element to lessons that will keep them engaged in learning while also giving them a chance to be kids and play.
I can not wait to try some of these ideas in my classroom! My students love hands on learning experiences
My kindergarten students would love these activities!
Cool playdoh activity and we can’t wait to use more
The color mixing activity was my favorite! I had a science lesson in my curriculum that was about color mixing and I was able to supplement with this activity as well!
My kiddos love subtraction smash!
Playdoh had been a huge help in my class working on muscle strength in the hands. My kids love to hide stuff in the playdoh and then dig to find it!
My kids love playing with playing and I love finding new ways for them to engage in fun, learning opportunities
Making model of cell membrane, cells, enzymes and even forensics crime scenes.
I can’t wait to try the subtraction smash & the solar system modeling with my first grade students.
These are some great ideas!
I love the idea of subtraction smash. It reinforces the idea of regrouping by giving kids more opportunity to unleash their natural desire to “smash” play-doh!
We love the Solar System in fourth grade…Play doh can accentuate a model. 3d all the way
Great for the Solar System fourth grade standard in Georgia. also can use during math tine to show fractions!
I love the color mixing acitivty
I think I will try the Play-Doh Smash activity for subtraction. I have older students so I will try larger numbers of Play-Doh balls to smash. I also, think it would be good to get them to sit long enough to make 25-50 Play-Doh balls.
You are never too old for play-dough! I love the “Subtraction Smash” idea for my class!
Great idea. I love using play dough in my classroom.
I live to have my student use Play-Doh to spell their spelling words with rolled snakes.
My kindergarten kiddos love using play-doh! It is a fabulous fine motor tool!
For PK students at the beginning of the year print out their name in bubble letters and have them use Play~Doh to learn the letters of their name by forming the letters with the Play-Doh and placing it on top of the their names. Also helps with fine motor skills. ( laminate mats first).
Using Play-Doh in S.S. Great new ideas!!
I love the subtraction activity called smash. I will use it this year!
I look forward to using play-doh for addition and subtraction!
Love all the ideas that my kiddos can do with Play-Doh!
As a kindergarten teacher, play-doh is the best brand for fine motor practice. The children use it to created shapes, letters, numbers, and even solve math problems with it. We love it!
I love the idea of practicing subtraction facts with my class using Play-Doh modeling compound as a visual aid!
I can’t wait to try to use Play-Doh for narratives! Such a smart idea and I think the kids would be really engaged – great for dramatic play as well!
I LOVE using STEM in my classroom and building the strongest shelter with play-doh is a perfect way to engage my students with some hands on learning.
I LOVE using Play-Doh in my Kindergarten classroom. Currently, I am using it for subtraction practice with some cards. The kids have to use Play-Doh to make the quantity of things and then smash the balls to subtract. They love it and it is great practice too!