Outstanding Ways to Increase Language Skills With Playdough

There are SO many opportunities to work on language expansion with playdough. This activity is motivating especially due to its sensory stimulation. You can target vocabulary, expanding utterances, and following directions all with one activity.

As the parent, stay in control of the playdough and cutters to keep the activity structured. Present your child with a few color options of dough.  Have your child label the colors and ask them which one they want. Your child can then request for the dough (i.e. “red dough” or “I want the red”).  If your child needs help opening the container, have them request for that as well (i.e. “help me” or “open please”).

Expand your child’s action vocabulary, by talking about what you can do with the dough, such as squeeze the dough, push the dough, and roll the dough.  If you have cutters to use, offer your child a few options and have them request for the one they want to use.  Talk to your child about what they are doing with the dough, such as “I see you are making a star” or “I see you are rolling the dough”.

You can also ask your child to make different objects with the dough to practice following directions.  Keep it simple at first.  Ask your child to make a ball or to roll the dough into a snake.  You can practice 2-step directions also, such as “make a ball and then a square”.

Explore making different objects with the dough.  Remember this activity should be FUN!

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