When buying Christmas gifts for children, most people want to choose a gift that is not only useful and fun but also educational.
Play-Doh wins on all accounts.
The colourful Play-Doh pots and huge range of creative kits are perfect for children from the age of 2 years old for stocking fillers, Christmas party favours, end of year school gifts and right up to bigger presents from family and Santa!
Play-Doh is the perfect choice for your little ones gifts not only because it is a well-known and trusted brand, it’s affordable and also has many benefits for growing children, including…
Developing their Motor Skills
Playing with Play-Doh encourages fine motor development (the movement of their hands and fingers). If your child is a budding “Master Chef”, the pasta making kit is ideal. You can set up a Play-Doh kitchen; get loads of child-friendly rolling pins, cookie cutters, scissors and sprinkles to decorate cookies, make pasta, cupcakes and 3D pieces of fruit. There are so many options.
Play-Doh is also the perfect activity for Christmas day. Making Christmas trees is one of our favourites! You can find more ways to build children’s fine motor skills here.
Creativity and Imagination
Each day of the holidays you can have a countdown with a different Play-Doh activity to complete. It might be Christmas decorations, animals, food, numbers, their name, planets in the solar system, Play-Doh fossils. The possibilities are endless!
Communication and Social Skills
On Christmas Day the kids can hand out Christmas cards out with pots little pots of Play-Doh in them instead of candy canes to family and friends. We love the “Dough-Lightful” gift ideas from this blog. You can even decorate the outside of pots of Play-Doh using glue, scissors, stickers etc into Snowmen, Reindeer, Santa. Or recycle the Play-Doh posts and have flowers from the garden around the house.
Numeracy, Literacy and Science
Play-Doh gives many options to divide and share the dough with friends. There is a huge range of Play-Doh mats on Pinterest (check out our board here) and print off some Christmas themed mats include Gingerbread Men, Santa’s face, Christmas Trees, Candy Canes, Snow Globes and more!
Sensory
Play-Doh is perfect for developing sensory systems and you can gather lots of bits and pieces from around the house including buttons, bells, cookie cutters, candy canes, decorations, sprinkles and glitter to give different sensory experiences.
Looking for free Christmas Play-Doh Mats to get even more creative? Check them out here.
You can buy Play-Doh from Target, K-Mart, Big W, independent toy stores and on Amazon here.
