The role of play dough in kids play at Dubai Nursery

Out of the many nursery methods in education, many of the best nursery schools in Dubai rely heavily on the motto learning through play. One such play material is play dough! Not only is it fun and popular among young children but the benefits of it when it comes to education are many.

Play dough has an indirect impact towards improving the fine motor skills of children. The malleable properties of play dough make it fun for investigation and exploration as well as secretly building up strength in all the tiny hand muscles and tendons, making them ready for pencil and scissor control later on. 

Poking in objects and pulling them out of play dough strengthens hand muscles and co-ordination. As part of simple, tactile play it can be squashed, squeezed, rolled, flattened, chopped, cut, scored, raked, punctured, poked and shredded! Each one of these different actions aids fine motor development in a different way, not to mention hand-eye co-ordination and general concentration. And as soon as you add another element to it, the list of benefits and creative play possibilities continues to grow!

The kids imagination and creativity can grow in leaps and bounds when they play with play dough. As soon as you introduce open ended play items to add to the mix, play dough becomes the perfect medium for numerous types of imaginative play and can represent so many things in a child’s eyes. A jar of candles and cupcakes cases leads naturally to birthday party role-play, counting out candles and singing! Glass pebbles can lead to sea-side imaginative small world play with storytelling about sea creatures and mermaids!

Also play dough can help calm and sooth anyone including kids and adults. The effects of all that squeezing and pummeling are great for stress relief and can feel extremely therapeutic! Little children can struggle to express their emotions and using dough while talking and singing can really help that process. 

With time play dough can be used in more focused play and help in introducing mathematics, science and literacy skills. Talk to your nursery school to learn more on the use of play dough as a part of daily play and learning times with the young children.