A couple of weeks back, Miss G and I put together a fall-themed play dough kit, and it’s been getting a ton of use ever since. {Some of Grae’s dolls even got deliciously scented dresses early one weekend morning – hah!} It goes without saying that we love play dough kits, so we usually keep a few on hand, switching out the doughs and themes each season. Well, since we’ve only switched out the one so far, it was time for the Canadian Wilderness set and the ice cream set to go. And in in their place? This fun dinosaur play dough kit and a super awesome Halloween kit {which I’ll share later this week}.
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Because Gracen currently spends her mornings at Kindergarten, I put this one together a couple of days ago and surprised her with it this afternoon. To start off, I made 4 half batches of our favourite no-cook play dough in turquoise {water}, green {grass/foliage}, brown {soil/mud}, and black {rock}. I kept things super simple and skipped scent all together, using Wilton gel colourings in order to make the doughs nice and vibrant {I can’t say enough good things about gel colouring – sooo much better than the liquid stuff}.
Then I simply gathered up a few things from around the house in order to fill our GLIS divided container {CAN | US} with loose parts that would encourage creativity and play. Included were several of the dinos from our Dinosauri Toob sets {we have this one and this one}, a handful of trees from our Tree Toob, some drift wood collected at the beach years ago, some blue glass gems, and some rocks and pebbles also collected long ago.
This afternoon, I set out the kit along with Karen Carr’s Dinosaur Hunt and left it for Miss G to discover.
She was thrilled when she did, and although she wanted to get straight to playing, she flipped through the book first to check out the illustrations {which are absolutely stunning, by the way}.
What I love about play dough kits is that they’re very open-ended invitations to play… This one lends itself particularly well to ‘small world’ creation and play, but a ton of story telling and some math came out of it today too.
We also used the parts to play one of our favourite simple play dough games… Imprint matching! {You can see some other versions here: LEGO, creepy crawlies, and random animals.}
And when we were done playing, we simply tucked everything back into our container and tucked it away for next time! {FYI – Because we play with our play dough so often, we don’t find the need to put our doughs into a zip-close bag first, but that being said, the GLIS containers are not air-tight, so pre-bagging the doughs before storing them definitely helps them keep longer.}
Do you have a little one who loves dinos? If so, you’re totally in luck! Check out some of the fun dinosaur activities our friends have created here:
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
Dinosaur Matching Puzzles Free Printable // Powerful Mothering
Dinosaur Play Dough Kit // {yours truly}
Dinosaur Counting Cards // The Kindergarten Connection
Dinosaur Matching // Coffee Cups and Crayons
Dinosaur Guessing Game // Play & Learn Everyday
Free Editable Dinosaur Name Plates // Fairy Poppins
Free Dinosaur Number Puzzles // Playdough to Plato
Dinosaur Egg Colour Matching // Teach Me Mommy
How to Stomp Out Dinosaur Sized // Sugar Aunts
Dinosaur Colours and Numbers Busy Bag // Adventures of Adam
Dinosaur Emergent Reader // The Kindergarten Connection
Free Dinosaur Subitizing Game // Fairy Poppins
Dinosaur Sensory Bottle // The Pleasantest Thing
Dinosaur Letter Tracing // Modern Preschool
(Not Shown) Dinosaur Busy Bag // Study at Home Mama
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Hi Jen! I’m following you from Germany and I just have to let you know how much I love your blog! You have such amazing ideas and it’ s such an inspiration to me… and obviously my daughter (4) is just thrilled with the results! Thank you so much… and keep posting! Greetings from Germany from Tina and Emma :-)
Hi Tina!! Germany – I’m jealous! We LOVE it there. :) Thanks so much for your kind words. So glad both you and Emma are enjoying it.
Where do you get the plastic containers to sort the playdough and the little themes pieces?
Hey Chelsey! The containers are from Ikea – in the children’s section. :) The little parts are things I’ve collected over the years from teacher’s stores, craft stores, and dollar stores. In the post you’ll see that many of the words are aqua instead of grey – those are clickable links to where the items are purchasable online if that helps too!
do you know what these containers are called? i’m having the hardest time finding them at ikea.
Hi Ashleigh! It’s called GLIS. I have it linked directly in my post (on both the US and Canadian Ikea sites) if you’re having troubles finding it. You’ll find them above – they’re in aqua. :)
I made a very similar kit for my 5 year old son over the summer when we did dinosaur week! What a nice surprise for Gracen when she got home from school!
Oh, very cool, Jen!
Where do you find the toobs in Canada?
Beautiful and creative!
Thank you, Shehla!!
Wow!! This is amazing!! I saw this person who was selling almost your exact kits for $40 each! I’m so excited to try your recipe and build my own kits. My kids are going to love this.