Hands-On Math: Fun Playdough Activities to Build Early Numeracy Skills.

Sometimes we want to gentle encourage some sly numeracy skills while the children play. Below are a few activities I have used with either our chief product tester or his pals. While you can buy our Numeracy set to help with ease to set up these activities, you can also use what you have around the house. Need to make dots in playdough- use the end of a pencil. Use a standard dice out of a game for counting, draw out a tens board on paper and use animals, lego or the latest children’s obsession (osshies) for helpful counting aids.  

As they divide deeper into the world of numbers and maths we want to nurture the spark of learning. I like to focus on a more child led play (inspired by thinkers such as Dr Maria Montessori, Loris Malaguzzi and Friedrich Froebel), so with all our set ups if the children venture off down another path or change up and develop the game that is amazing. Let them lead and just follow along. Sometimes the learning may be obviously and sometimes not as much. The activities that I list below have a few notes about what learning will be going to help give you a brief look into the world of a child’s developing mind. Our aim is that all children’s play is learning.

These are some big overall learning that will be occurring, especially regarding playing with playdough. Combining tactile play with visual tools gives children multiple pathways to process new concepts. By rolling, pressing, and counting, children develop:

• Fine Motor Skills: Pressing stampers, rolling and manipulating the playdough helps build hand strength and development of those crucial skills that require our hands to do all the amazing things they are capable of.
• Literacy development: Pairing written words with numerals bridges literacy and math simultaneously. Speaking the words out loud also helps to development oral language.
• Math Confidence: Making mistakes in playdough is stress-free—simply smooth it out and try, try again.

Activity 1: The Number Train (Ages 2–4)

Focus: Number recognition, word matching, and counting sequence (1–10).

Bonus Developmental skills: Oral laugngae building, vocabulary building, fine motor control, and hand muscle building.

What You Need:

• 1–10 Number Roller
• 1–10 Word Stampers
• Playdough

How to Play:

1. Roll out a long "track" or strip of playdough.
2. Use the 1-10 number roller and roll out along the “track”. Even better to get the kids to do this.
3. Have the kid find the corresponding Word Stamper (e.g., matching the numeral 3 to the word three) and stamp it directly on top of each rolled number.
4. Even better with a long train and the number appearing multiple times, they can go along stamping it again and again to help build the number recognition.
5. Count out loud together, as you go along from 1 to ten.

-            Other ideas to try. Add in the dotted (1-6) dice, and stamp the dots onto the corresponding number rolled out. Or roll out the playdough and get the stampers out, stamping down the words of the numbers 1-6 and get the children to roll the dice count the dots they land on and then stamp it down into the playdough next to the already stamped word.

Activity 2: Animal Chaos (Ages 2–5)

Focus: Number recognition, counting 1-20 in sequence

Bonus Developmental skills: Oral language building, vocabulary building, fine motor control, hand muscle building, animal recognition- (add in sounds animals make or interested about certain animals where the live etc and follow the child led play down the path)

What You Need:

• 1–10 Number Roller
• 10-20 Number Roller
• Playdough
• Animals

How to Play:

1. Children help gather animals and place them on the table.
2. A bunch of playdough each, get them to spread it out and roll each of the number rollers 1-10 and 10-20. 
3. Get the kids to choose a bunch of animals.
4. Get them to count out the animals they have chosen and squish down the number they have in the playdough. Perphas use the animal to squish it down/ leave it in the playdough.
5. Recount and countine squishing down the numbers.
6. Can develop the game with simple questions- how many sheep are on the table. The first to squish the number on there playdough wins and so forth.

Activity 3: Build & Fill Tens Frames (Ages 4–6)

Focus: Place value, subitizing, and understanding ten as a base unit.

Bonus Developmental Skills: Oral language building, sensory experience through touch, fine motor skills, listening and following instructions, and sorting fun.

What You Need:

• Tens Type Roller
• 1–10 Number Roller
• 1- 6 dotted dice
• Small objects- coins, marbles etc
• Playdough

How to Play:

1. Roll out a flat sheet of playdough and use the Tens Type Roller to imprint a clean 10-frame grid onto the surface. Or use the 5 frame grid for younger children on the same roller.
2. On another roll out the 1-10 roller on some playdough.
3. Ask the child to select a number on the playdough by squishing it down.
4. Then get them to put that number of items “marbles” into the tens frame.
5. Repeat and have fun.
6. Bonus activity- Add in the 10-20 Number roller and For numbers over 10, print two tens frames side-by-side to introduce how two-digit numbers are built (e.g., 14 is one full ten-frame and four ones). You can also use the 1- 6 doted dice, the child rolls the dice counts the number and fills out the tens tray with how many was on the dice.

Activity 4: Roll, Stamp & Solve Equation Builder (Ages 5–8)

Focus: Addition, subtraction, and basic equation construction.

Bonus Developmental Skills: Literacy and numeracy building, listening and following instruction, fine motor skills and sensory fun.

What You Need:

• Math Dice with Equation Symbols (+, -, =)
• 1–10 or 10–20 Number Rollers
• Word Stampers or Number Rollers
• Playdough

How to Play:

1. Flatten three or four separate patches of playdough in a row.
2. Roll out the 1-10 number roller.
3. Get the child to pick a number, squish it down in the playdough.
4. Roll the Math Dice onto the second patch to stamp an equation symbol (like + or – for younger children, multiply and divide for the older children).
5. Squish another number on the playdough.
6. Have your child solve the problem and if it is under ten stamp the word number after the equals symbol on the dice.

Add in the tens frame to show the numbers adding or taking away of objects. Add in the 10-20 roller to push the learning to the next level once they have a good grasp of lower numbers.

Playdough Recipe:

Everyone has their favourite playdough recipe this is one I have found works well and lasts for a while. Secret is to add boiling water first and salt together and let the salt and crème of tartar to dissolve first before adding all rest of the ingredients. If too sticky just keep adding more flour until just right.

Uncooked playdough:

3 cups Boling water

3 cups flour

6 teaspoons of crème of Tatar

1 and ½ cups of salt

3 tablespoons of oil

Food Colouring