Playdough Winter Invitation to Play: His Way

I cannot believe that it is November and we have yet to have real snow!  We have had some freezing cold weather, frost, and even flakes in the air – but no real snow on the ground.  We almost always have snow by Halloween, so we had really been talking about snow to Sammy.  he is so excited for all of the snowy fun ahead!

So since we are still waiting I created Playdough Snowballs (using our Ultimate Playdough Recipe of course) and set up an Invitation to Play for Sammy.  I rolled the playdough into snow balls and set out buttons, ribbon, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and popsicle sticks.  I had envisioned Sammy creating sweet little Snowmen … 🙂

Well, I should have known that my creative boy would have his own imaginative ideas!  He did create Snowmen, yes, but quite differently then I had thought he would.  I had also given Sammy some toothpicks to help stick his snowmen together.  Hmmm, turns out Sammy really likes toothpicks.  He used them to stick his snowman together, and also to poke in eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  He also used them to stick a whole family of these snowmen together.  My pretty, colourful invitation to play supplies sat untouched.

Once he finished his snowman family, he got really creative.  There happened to be some little cars sitting rather close by so he decided to set up a race track for them (out of snowballs).  It was sort of like a weaving obstacle course.  Very fun.  And rather noisy …

Next, he noticed that the cars left an impression when they crashed into the snowballs.  So Sammy made up a very neat game!  He would press one of his cars into a snowball and I would have to guess which car left the imprint.  Then we switched.  It was quite a neat game and reminded me of our Playdough Nature Walk.

After this game Sammy decided to make a parking lot for all of his cars.  He pushed each car into a snowball, and the imprint would remind him which car was to park in which spot.  Such a creative little man!  And still, my invitation to play supplies (so pretty and brightly coloured) sat untouched.

I must tell you that I have come along way.  I can admit that it was rather agonizing not suggesting that Sammy make a beautiful snowman.  But I didn’t.  And his imagination and creativity ran wild!

When Madeline got home and had a turn with this invitation she immediately made a very cute snowman. And I am sure I actually let out a sigh of relief.

Sammy was watching Madeline make her snowman and I was interested to see what he would do … He asked Madeline, “When you are done making your snowman do you want to play a snowball, crushing, racing game with me?”  🙂

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