Invite Them to Create Their Own Play-Dough Habitats
I love a good invitation to play! I lay out a certain set of materials, perhaps make a few suggestions through simply arranging parts myself or talking about something we've read or done recently....and wait to see what they kids will do next.
For this particular invitation I thought it would be interesting to work a bit with building habitats out of loose parts and play-dough. I used homemade play-dough that I made loosely following a recipe from Emma Owl. A couple months later and we are still using the same play-dough, so I highly recommend following this recipe if you are going to give making it yourself a try!
Assembling Your Own Habitat Kit You can get creative with this but here are the basic steps to building a "Habitat" Kit...
Decide what type of Habitat you would like to invite the child (children) to create.
Here we built a River Habitat Kit. So I will walk you through what we included.
Large Stick
Small Twigs
Toob Animals
Larger Rocks
Smaller Pebbles
Reindeer Moss
Decorative Glass Rocks
Small Shells
If you want to change the type of Habitat then there are few things you could switch out. Think about including different animals for starters. You can also swap out natural materials to match. Then of course, change the color of your play-dough accordingly
I am going to be creating an Arctic Kit soon to go with the season and I'm considering including the following materials:
White and Blue Buttons or Blocks
Cotton Balls
Glass Beads
Polar Bear, Seals, and Pengiuns
White, Light Blue, and Dark Blue Play-dough
Maybe even some real snow or ice!
It was so much fun to sit and watch this play unfold. Sticks and bits of dried moss became trees. Play-dough and glass chunks became water. And sticks and twigs became fallen logs and building materials for the beaver I included in the set. It transformed and changed as the play went on and as my toddler wandered away and my pre-schooler got involved.
I left the materials out for a while on a shelf in our built-in but they never went back to it. So now these parts and pieces have been merged into tinker trays and other fun activities. These mini-habitats are great jumping off points for learning about the subject in depth. They also pair wonderfully with prior adventures to these particular landscapes. And they make great follow-ups to a few great library finds on the subject!
And one thing I always try to remember with these "Invitations to Create and Play" are that they are just that...invitations. The kids can say no and that's okay! When they aren't that into it I just try again later or another day. It all depends on their mood and interests that day. Sometimes I get so excited about the possibilities with the materials that I play while they sit at the table and work on their own projects! Then they pick up where I left off at some point.
While I try to provide a little bit of structure and direction, ultimately it's like handing over the keys to the kingdom with loose parts play. They are in control of their own creative destinies and usually they end up unlocking some pretty cool stuff!
Have fun!
