Playdough is introduced at Banana Moon from a very early age – Many will ask is it safe and do the children eat it? Our playdough is child friendly, with child safe ingredients and therefore perfectly safe for all to enjoy – even our budding Baby Moons. Playdough is a malleable material which enables children to build strength in their muscles and tendons, those all-important fine motor skills that will be needed later in scissor and pencil control for the early stages of writing, drawing shapes and letter formation. 

Playdough itself can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, poked, stretched, flattened, chopped, raked, punctured, and shredded. Each of these actions aid children’s hand eye co-ordination and helps increase levels of concentration and engagement. In fact – as soon as you change how you’re using the playdough or add a further resource the learning opportunities increase, and the imaginative opportunities are endless.

Did you know adding uncooked spaghetti and cereal hoops allows a great base for threading and stacking providing great challenge alongside the physical fine motor skills. Having empty containers, bottles or boxes allows children to empty, fill, count, and object sort through play too! These opportunities can take you on a journey of cooking, matching, exploring natural ingredients and increases engagement with the world around us with no pressure to learn and made enjoyable through play! 

Add a splash of natural ingredients, flowers, twigs, leaves, herbs, scents and colour and playdough can also provide a soothing and calming experience which supports positive well-being for all. The effects of squeezing and pummelling is a great stress release and can feel very therapeutic. 

Playdough is a fantastic substance and will now form part of our daily play and interactions for the children within our care!