Playing With Playdough in Speech Therapy

Creating this timeless children’s play material at home is incredibly simple, leaving you with no desire to purchase it ever again!

Playdough Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups flour

3/4 cups salt

4 tablespoons cream of tartar

2 cups warm water

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Food coloring if desired

Process

1. In a large pot, mix together all of the ingredients.

2. Turn on the heat to medium-low and continue mixing until all the ingredients start to come together and become harder to mix.

3. Once the mixture resembles dough, remove it from the heat.

4. Dump the dough onto a floured surface and let it cool until it is comfortable to handle.

5. Separate the dough into as many portions as you desire for different colors.

6. Add liquid or gel food coloring to each portion and knead until the color is evenly dispersed throughout the dough.

7. Store the playdough in a container for up to 6 months.

How to play with playdough in speech therapy

Now you know how to make your own playdough let’s explore how we use it to play with in speech therapy.

For the ultimate sensory experience, it’s ideal to begin with just your hands and imagination. Model and narrate a wide range of actions for your child. Playdough is a great activity for developing action words, often an area of weakness for late talkers. Here are some ideas:

You can also model shaping playdough into various objects such as:

Add objects and tools to your play:

Scissors – use scissors to cut long snakes of playdough, and model words such as snip, cut, or trim.

Rolling pin – use a rolling pin to roll out a piece of playdough, you can make it very thin. Describe the actions of rolling, flattening, pressing, or smoothing.

Plastic card – use a plastic card like a credit card or library card to cut the playdough. Describe the action with words such as cut, slice, swipe, or scrape.

Add gems to make it sparkle – show your child how to press gems or sequins into the playdough to make it sparkle or shine. Use words like press, poke, decorate, and beautiful.

Utensils – encourage your child to poke with the tines of a fork, cut with a plastic knife, or scoop playdough balls with a spoon. Describe actions such as poke, prod, slice, scrape, or scoop.

Googly eyes – make playdough monsters by pushing in googly eyes. Use words like push, embed, silly, or create.

Objects – provide various small objects for poking, inserting, printing, stamping, or pressing into the playdough. Items such as toothpicks, q-tips, candles, beads, beans, golf tees, small toys, or markers with the cap down. Describe the different actions with words like poke, stamp, press, prod, pierce, stick, in, or insert.

Hide – hide small objects like buttons, gems, beads, or small toys (I like to use plastic animals) in the playdough, and have your child find them by poking or digging. Use words like bury, hide, discover, uncover, or treasure.

Cookie cutters – use cookie cutters to work on object names and the verbs push, separate, or pull. Guide your child to press the cookie cutter into the playdough, separate the shape from the surrounding dough, and pull it out. Use words like press, separate, release, or pull.

Playdough mats – provide our child with laminated playdough mats. Playdough mats are printed shapes or scenes that your child can press the playdough onto the mat to create the corresponding shapes or fill in the scenes. Use words like press, cover, mold, or create.

Let me know if you make this recipe and how you play with playdough with your child.