Apple Theme Playdough Center

Inside: Have some fall fun with an apple theme playdough center while strengthening fine motor skills!

Playdough is a staple in our toddler and preschool classroom!

During our apple theme we worked on fine motor strengthening with playdough tools and apple cookie cutters and small fake apples.

Let me show you the fun we had! Watch the video:

If you’ve been following Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds for awhile, you’ve heard me mention the importance of strengthening fine motor skills for a long time.

In fact, I have a whole collection of toddler fine motor ideas in this post!

The hands get quite a work out while squeezing and pulling playdough, and we always provide an assortment of tools that also involve the fine motor muscles.

Before children start writing, it’s important to strengthen the hands and fingers, and playdough is one of my favorite ways of doing this.

Plus, the playdough center is one of the easiest to set up! We keep everything in a small bin that makes set up a breeze.

Watch: Playdough Favorites in Our Classroom

Apple Theme Playdough Center

Supplies

• Playdough (My Favorite Recipe)
• Rolling pins
• Various playdough tools
• Apple cookie cutters
• Small fake apples

Setting Up the Playdough Center

Our playdough center is available during our free-choice centers time. It’s located at a table that seats five children, so I place five spots at this table.

Before the children arrive, I put a ball of playdough at each spot (I often use these mirrors in place of mats) and scatter the assorted cookie cutters and tools.

At the beginning of the school year, we work hard on the biggest rule of the playdough table: The playdough stays at the playdough table.”

If you’ve taught two year olds, you know how they love to carry everything around.

Playdough included.

And they are fast!

Even with us keeping an eye on this area, all it takes is for us to get distracted and a ball of playdough will “somehow” land in another area of the room.

As the school year progresses, this isn’t as much of an issue. But it’s important to establish the rule right from the start and be very consistent.

I cannot tell you how many pairs of shoes ended up with playdough on their soles and then rubbed into our area rugs!

Other than the rule of keeping the playdough at the playdough table, it’s a pretty relaxing area.

The children love to roll the playdough and press items in it, in this case apple cookie cutters and small apples.

Sometimes we will bring out a little pretend wooden microwave, place it on the playdough table, and use it as a pretend oven.

We will provide small baking pans and plates that they will put their creations on before putting it all in the oven.

Our three year old class (who shares our classroom and meets on alternate days) will add scissors, too.

Our two year olds are introduced to scissors a bit later in the school year.

Length of Use

I am often asked how long we use a batch of playdough. We usually make a new batch with every theme, so that’s about two weeks. We change the color depending on what our theme is, as well as the themed materials.

Clean Up

When centers time is over, we place the playdough in a Zip-Lock baggie and everything goes in a bin that is stored on top of our cabinet, ready for the next day!