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Playdough and clay fun time!
Clay and Playdough
The Clay and Playdough play are an essential part of early childhood learning. The activities incorporated in these areas help children develop their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, exploration, and creativity. In July at BestStart Willowpark Road, the focus was on enhancing learning and exploration by adding natural resources to both sensory activities.
Benefits of Manipulations
Manipulating clay and playdough provide children with an opportunity to explore new textures and shapes, and in turn, develop their fine motor skills. These manipulations encourage children to use their hands and fingers to mold, shape, and create different forms. This is critical in developing hand-eye coordination, improving dexterity, and gaining strength in their hands and fingers.
The Importance of Natural Resources
Incorporating natural resources in sensory activities is a great way to enhance learning and exploration. Natural resources provide children with a variety of textures and colors to explore, which encourages them to use their senses, and develop their creativity. For instance, adding leaves, twigs or flowers to playdough or clay can help children understand different shapes, sizes, and colors of natural resources while encouraging them to explore their creativity by creating different forms with the resources.
In conclusion, the Clay and Playdough provide an excellent opportunity for tāmāriki to develop their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and improve their dexterity. By adding natural resources to these activities we were able to explore different textures and colors, and enhance their creativity while learning.
For more information about the learning and development that happens during clay and playdough play click here.