Fall Play Doh Apple Pie – Invitation to Play

Yesterday I shared my absolute favourite play doh recipe.  Today, I thought I would share an incredibly simple learning activity we did with the Play Doh. 

I decided to try an “Invitation to Play” with Sammy.  I had done these many times in my Kindergarten classroom and was inspired to try one at home from the great posts I’ve been reading from twodaloo.  It went very well!

In a nut shell, an invitation to play is simply setting up materials in a way that encourages play in an open ended manner.  I love them for many reason, but at home the beauty is that you can use whatever you have on hand and easily relate it to whatever your wee one is currently interested in.

I set up the Play Doh in a way that looked like we would be cooking apple pie.

I provided Sam with:

Play Doh Apples,

Play Doh Sugar,

Sticks,

All Spice,

Pie Pan,

Rolling Pin,

Spoons and Forks.

The learning that happened was amazing to watch.  Sam was counting, pretending, imagining, using different voices and becoming various characters.  Better yet, he played in this way for over 30 minutes.  When he tired of making pies, he cooked pizza.  His pizza crust amazingly became a parking lot in the blink of an eye and he added parking spaces around the sides.

I am so glad I tried this activity with Sam.  He truly enjoyed it and I felt it was a very meaningful learning activity for him.  It is so lovely how wee ones can learn so perfectly from play.

We will definitely be doing more invitations to play and setting up ‘little worlds’ for Sammy to wrap himself in.  Such a magical time – being 3.

Oh – and Benjamin enjoyed himself too 🙂

What is your favourite Play Doh activity?