Apple Tree Playdough Kit

Playdough is the best, isn’t it?  My favorite is watching a parent nonchalantly pick up a piece and start kneading it for awhile and then look up and “wow, this is great”.  I love using playdough as a medium for exploring a theme.  We are going apple picking this weekend so I whipped up a quick batch of our favorite homemade playdough and created an Apple Tree Playdough Kit.

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WHAT YOU NEED FOR THE APPLE TREE PLAYDOUGH KIT

green playdough (check out our homemade recipe here) or buy green playdough
beads (red, apple, yellow) for apples- I like these because they are sorted by color
buttons
styrofoam cones or toilet paper rolls
sticks (we went outside and collected our own)
tray (we love these chip trays for playdough activities)

AREAS OF DEVELOPMENT

fine motor development
creativity
color exploration
language development
sensory exploration

HAVE FUN WITH THE APPLE TREE PLAYDOUGH KIT!

Start by making a batch of green playdough.  You can find our homemade playdough recipe here.  Save money and order the cream of tartar online.  Get the kids involved.  Cooking with kids is such a wonderful learning experience.  Once you have your playdough you can set up the kit.  We included green playdough, beads and buttons to represent apples, sticks from our yard and styrofoam cones.  The cones were leftover from an awesome activity on Mama Papa Bubba.

I sorted greens, reds and yellows because I wanted us to focus on the fact that apples are more than red.  This was a wonderful conversation starter.  Mama, why did you put yellow and green in?  Apples are red.  We talked about how some apples are red, but they are also other colors, too. I brought some real apples out and they explored all the different colors on the apples.  Now it was time to explore the materials in their own way.  Luca took a long time carefully covering the styroam cone with playdough.  “Mama, I want the whole thing covered.  No white spots at all.” She then attempted to create a trunk out of the sticks, but couldn’t figure out how to make it stand up so she made the decision to use the sticks as branches.  Love the experimenting that occurred!

Next she explored which beads could fit on the branches and which beads were too thick.  So much learning happening with simple materials!  Look at the concentration on her face.

After having fun with the Apple Tree Playdough Kit you could visit an orchard, make some of our favorite apple pancakes, play a few apple themed activities or check out my favorite apple themed book.

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