Easy & Fun Fall-Themed Play Dough Pre-School Activities

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Despite the fact that our temperatures are still fairly warm here, and we don’t really have a fall season, per se, I am excited about the idea of fall.

I love seeing the fall decorations in the store–leaves, pumpkins, hay bales and scarecrows. Autumn colors of rich reds, oranges, yellows, and browns.

I will admit I am not much of a pumpkin spice girl, though. Growing up we always had sweet potato pie instead of pumpkin. In fact, I remember the first time I tried to make pumpkin pie after we got married. I bought a can of pumpkin, a pie crust, and put the two together to cook in the oven. I had no idea that you had to add stuff to the canned pumpkin!

My sweet husband did his best to still eat it afterward, but it truly was just gross. I took pity on him and trashed the whole thing. We still laugh about it today. And I still don’t make many pumpkin pies.

Fall Colored Play Dough

Instead of pumpkin pie or pumpkin spice anything, we decided to celebrate fall with fall colored play dough. I like this play dough recipe because it’s super simple and it makes a lot of play dough. I made one batch for each color, so there would be enough of a color for multiple kids to play with simultaneously. Each batch is the equivalent to 3-4 cans of store bought play dough. I find gel food coloring gives me the best color and I can find it in shades like brown and black. For my red play dough, I added a touch of black food coloring to give it a darker color.

When you are heating the dough, you want to cook it until it is the consistency of play dough. It is okay if it is a little sticky. Once you start kneading, the stickiness will disappear.

If your dough starts sticking to the bottom of your pan, then either your heat is up to high or you should have already turned it out. Either way, remove the play dough from the pan and onto a surface to cool.

Everyone Loves Play Dough

All of my kids from the biggest to the littlest love playing with play dough. There is just something soothing about kneading and squishing the dough in your hands.

The versatility of play dough makes for endless opportunities.

I love giving my kids opportunities to stretch their imagination. I am always impressed with the things they envision. It gives me great pleasure to watch them create. Sometimes there are stories to go along with what they’ve made. Others it’s just a creation they thought would be cool. Or with my younger ones, experimenting to see how different tools affect the play dough. And with a preschooler right now who loves to cut everything, play dough is the perfect medium.

Play dough is also a great manipulative to use in teaching. Lenora has been working hard on learning to associate the number with the quantity for that number. I came up with a few “how many” games using our play dough to help with the concept.

How Many? Counting Games

All three of these games are really easy and use items you most likely already have on hand. If I have to run to the store for a “special” item, then it’s probably not happening.

Game 1–Cheerio Stacking

You need: play dough, 1-2 uncooked spaghetti noodles (or toothpicks), handful of Cheerio’s (or Fruit Loops), die (I used a regular die, but these foam dice would be safer for preschool age.)

The Set-up: Place 1-2 spaghetti sticks into play dough. Make sure dough is deep and large enough to hold the sticks without them falling out.

The Learning Objective: Children will work on fine motor skills and on associating quantities to numbers.

To Play: Have your child roll the die, then place that number of Cheerios on the spaghetti stick. Depending on your child’s level, you can have them add or subtract Cheerios based on what they roll. With two spaghetti sticks have them roll the die for each stick and place that number of Cheerios on it. Then ask which stick has greater/fewer Cheerios.

Lenora liked this game the best because got to eat the Cheerios.

Game 2–Match the Die

You need: Play dough, die, rounded stick (we used a Tinker Toy, but anything with a small rounded end will work)

The Set-up: Shape the play dough into a large cube.

The Learning Objective: Children will learn to associate the number of dots on a die with the number name.

To Play: Say the number on the die. Have your child mimic the number of dots on the die onto their play dough die. It is okay if they are not in the same pattern. Count the number of dots and say the final number again.

Game 3–Pop Off the Dots

You need: Play dough, die

The Learning Objective: Learn to count and match numbers. Use fine motor skills in breaking off and rolling play dough.

To Play: Have your child roll the die. Next have them break off small pieces of play dough and roll into balls to match the number on the die. This is another one where you can have them roll again and then compare which pile of “dots” is bigger, which has less, etc.

Follow Your Child’s Lead

As you can see, none of these games are super complicated. The simplicity of them is what I like. At this age learning is best done through play and these are easy games that my daughter likes to play. I always follow her lead in how much she wants to do. Sometimes that means that she just eats her Cheerios and has fun putting them on and off the spaghetti noodles.

When she gets it wrong, for example she rolls a two but puts on six Cheerios, I count how many she put on and show her the corresponding six on the die, and then we move on. There is no need to drill or have them keep repeating it until they get it right at this age.

Lenora is just shy of three, so she is just barely starting to grasp this math concept. Don’t worry if it takes your preschooler some time to “get it.” Just have fun and play with them. If they aren’t interested, then think up a new game or just talk about numbers while you play together. Keep it light, keep it fun, keep it short. And play, play, play!

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