Bird Play Dough Mat Thank You

Thank you for grabbing our Bird Play Dough Mat! You should have an email in your inbox right now with a link to access the file. 

Did you find this page accidentally and want to know what the fuss is about? Go to our outer space play dough mat page to get your free bird play dough mat!

The email also includes some instructions and the “why” behind play dough mats like this one. There is a lot of development going on when a little one uses a play dough mat like the one you just accessed! Scroll below to to find some additional instructions to best use the play dough mat to increase hand strength of the intrinsic muscles of the hands.


How to use your Bird Play Dough Mat and General Housekeeping Information on your Free Printable:

You are going to build so many small muscles of the hand with this activity!

1. To use this play dough mat, you will first want to cover it with a plastic surface so you can use it over and over again. Some ideas to do this include (Amazon affiliate links are included below):


  • Cover it with clear contact paper. Click the link to purchase a large roll of clear contact paper.
  • Slide the play dough mat into a clear plastic page protector sleeve. Add it to a folder workbook or binder booklet of play dough mats for quiet time or a busy bag-type of activity.
  • Use a laminator to cover the play dough mat with a laminated surface that can be used over and over again. This is a great price on a quick laminator and laminating pouches.
  • Use pocket sleeves to create a quiet time or fine motor center activity.



2. Once the play dough mat is covered, provide the child with play dough, clay, foam dough, or other moldable material.



3. Ask the child to roll small balls of play dough using just the fingers and thumb of one hand. They should use their dominant hand to roll small balls of play dough with the tips of the fingers and thumb. This is an AWESOME hand strengthening exercise for kids. 

4. Ask the child or children to roll various sizes of play dough so the balls of dough fit into the various circle sizes on the play dough mat. 



If you do not see the email right away, check back within 30 minutes. Be sure to check your SPAM folder.  Other subscribers using an email hosted on a school system’s email provider may have security restrictions in place that block the email. If you still don’t see the email, shoot me a message at contact@www.theottoolbox.com and I will send the file to you directly.

If you arrived here by accident and would like to receive a free outer space themed play dough mat to improve hand strength, check out this post that shares information on the Outer Space Play Dough Mat.


How to use a Play Dough Mat to Improve Fine Motor Skills

Your kids or therapy clients are going to build so many small muscles of the hand with this activity! Follow the directions below to maximize intrinsic muscle strengthening. Start with play dough of any kind and the printable playdough mat.

Rolling play dough within one hand promotes development of a variety of areas: 


  • Strengthens the arches of the hands, helps awareness and coordination in separation of the two sides of the hand
  • Promotes finger isolation for improved control and dexterity
  • Encourages dexterity and coordination of the thumb and index finger which are important in pencil grasp
  • Strengthens the intrinsic muscles for improved endurance in fine motor tasks such as maintaining hold on a pencil, manipulating clothing fasteners, managing and using scissors, coloring, and many other tasks.



Looking for more play dough activities to boost fine motor strengthening?




Play Dough Farm Activity | Play Dough Activity Color Match  | Play Dough Cupcakes

Soap Play Dough Recipe

We signed up for another year of the 12 months of Sensory Dough series with a few other bloggers and have been having so much fun coming up with creative play dough recipes.  If you missed some of our other recent sensory dough recipes, you’ll want to catch up on the sensory fun: Proprioception Sensory DoughPaprika Natural Spice Dough, and Edible Pixy Stix Candy Dough  were tons of fun.  

Today’s homemade play dough recipe is definitely not edible but it does use ingredients you probably have in your home: Soap Play Dough is very soft, smells great, and is fun to mix up!
Make sensory play dough using liquid dish soap for a soft sensory play dough recipe that the kids will love!

Homemade Soap Play Dough Recipe


This post contains affiliate links. 

You’ll need just a few ingredients to whip up a batch of soap dough:
1/2 cup Liquid Dish Soap (We used the blue type.  I’m not sure if other colors of liquid dish soap would work in this recipe.  If you try it, let us know!)
1 cup Flour
1 teaspoon Cream of Tartar (I LOVE this bulk container for making play dough.  The ingredient really makes most play dough recipes softer and longer lasting.  You can’t always find Cream of Tartar in stores so this bulk buy is awesome to have in the house!)

Make sensory play dough using liquid dish soap for a soft sensory play dough recipe that the kids will love!

To make the Soap Play Dough Recipe

Grab a large glass mixing bowl and pour in the dish soap.  We used a glass measuring cup to measure out the soap and the grooved lip of the measuring cup made pouring the liquid soap so much easier.  My toddler was mesmerized by the falling dish soap! 

Make sensory play dough using liquid dish soap for a soft sensory play dough recipe that the kids will love!
Stir in the flour and cream of tartar.  Use spoons to get the mixture stirred at first, but then you’ll want to get your hands in there to really mix the ingredients.  Plop the play dough out onto a floured surface and knead, knead, knead!  

Kneading play dough is a great way to incorporate proprioception into a play dough activity.  It really applies pressure through the arms and up into the shoulder girdle.  You can add more flour at this point if the dough is too sticky.  Just be aware that the nature of this dough allows for some stickiness. The soap adds a bit of stick to the play dough, but it sure does smell great!

Make sensory play dough using liquid dish soap for a soft sensory play dough recipe that the kids will love!
Get the kids in on the play and have fun with your soap dough! 

Store this play dough overnight in a sealed container.  It will be more sticky the next day, but you can knead in a bit of flour or just work the dough a little bit.  It will be softer the next day, too.

Try these soap dough recipes from our blogging friends:
Bath Time Play Dough | Sugar, Spice & Glitter
Super Squishy DIY Soap Dough | Natural Beach Living
Easy Soap Dough Play Recipe | Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail

Make sensory play dough using liquid dish soap for a soft sensory play dough recipe that the kids will love!
Love this idea? Share it on Facebook!
If you liked this post, you will love to check out more of our favorite sensory dough recipes:

                         Fizzy Soda Dough

Intrinsic Muscle Strengthening Play Dough Mat

I wanted to share a resource we’ve had on the website for many years. It’s a simple intrinsic hand strengthening play dough mat. We use this printable play dough mat to build strong pinch and grip strength by targeting the intrinsic muscles of the hands. Intrinsic muscle strength is needed for endurance and dexterity in the hands, so it’s a major factor in fine motor skills.

  • Check out our other free play dough mats that we have on the website for more tools for hand strength.

The intrinsic muscles are the ones within the hands. Rolling balls of play dough works on the intrinsic muscles and builds the development of a tripod grasp, improves arch development of the palm, and encourages use of the skilled side of the hand

I share a lot of play dough activities.  We also have a lot of play dough recipes here on the site. When we get kids involved in making play dough, they are building hand strength and endurance in pinch and grasp, so it’s a win-win. Because, after one makes a batch of playdough, then they must play! And, when we play with play dough, we are building stronger hands. OT professionals love this therapy material! And then there are all of the fine motor activities that go along with the play dough. A blogging friend suggested I do something with 365 days of play dough. I’ve got enough ideas that I could share one a day with you and still not be done!

Intrinsic Hand Strength with Play Dough

Play-Doh isn’t just for fun; it’s a fantastic tool to help your child’s hand strength and fine motor skills. And, that’s why we as occupational therapy providers love it!

By rolling small balls of Play-Doh, kids work on their intrinsic grasp and muscle strength, and they don’t ever realize it. This activity boosts their pinch strength and dexterity. It’s simple yet effective. Just have them use their fingertips on a Play-Doh mat. It’s a playful way to enhance their hand’s intrinsic muscle strength, vital for everyday tasks and their overall development.

Play-Doh is a fantastic tool for your child’s hand strength development. While they roll small balls of Play-Doh, they’re working on intrinsic strengthening of the hand.

We’ve created a simple play dough mat to support this skill. By rolling play dough balls into different sizes with just their finger tips, kids build that strength and dexterity.

These hand intrinsic exercises are crucial for building intrinsic muscle strength in their hands. As they engage in these intrinsic hand muscle exercises, you’ll notice improvements in their grasp, pinch strength, and overall dexterity. It’s a fun, engaging way to support their fine motor skill development.


Play dough is awesome.


It’s awesome for building intrinsic muscle strength.  It’s awesome for working gross motor muscle strength.  It’s awesome for proprioception to the hands.  It’s awesome for working on handwriting, scissor skills, and pencil grasp.  It’s a great treatment tool in Occupational Therapy clinics and it’s a great manipulative in learning activities.


Do you (and your kids) love play dough as much as we do?


I’ve got a creative way to build the intrinsic muscles of the hands using play dough and a play dough mat.  This play mat is designed to work on the muscles needed for a functional pencil grasp and endurance in maintaining that grasp.  It’s designed to work on the dexterity needed for coloring without fatigue.  And it’s designed to be fun for little ones who need to work on these areas.

Be sure to check out this article on how to use emotions playdough mats to support fine motor strength and emotional self regulation.

 
Hand strengthening intrinsic muscle strengthening with play dough and a free re-usable play dough mat.

 

This post contains affiliate links.

 



Hand strengthening intrinsic muscle strengthening with play dough and a free re-usable play dough mat.

 

Here are more resources for strengthening the intrinsic muscles of the hands:

​Space Play Dough Mat ​

​Astronaut Play Dough Mat ​

​Play Dough City ​

​Ice Cream Play Dough Mat​

​Toy Theme Play Dough Mat ​

​Play Dough Bird Mat​

​Roll and Write Play Dough Mat Bundle​

​Numbers 1-20 Sky/Ground Play Mats​

​A-Z Sky/Ground Play Mats

A few play dough ideas I know you will love:

All the Red Crayons in the Box Play Dough 

Crayon Floam Dough 

Gold, Silver, and Bronze Metallic Crayon Play Dough 

Play Dough Farm 

Play Dough Color Match 

Play Dough Cupcakes

Play Dough Color Match

Play Dough and Rocks Proprioception activity

Crayon Salt Dough 

Patriotic Crayon Salt Dough 

Crayon Shaving Art

How to Use a Play Dough Mat for Intrinsic Hand Strength

To use this play dough mat, you’ll first laminate the paper or slip it into a sheet protector sleeve.  Then, show your child how to fill the circles with play dough by rolling small balls of play dough with the thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger.  

There are different sizes of circles on the mat, requiring the child to roll small or large play dough balls.  This encourages more reined intrinsic muscle use.  

You can use the mat in several ways:

  • Allow the child to fill the circles with play dough with random colors.
  • Assign different sized circles to different colors of play dough.  This provides a visual scanning component to the activity.
  • Write numbers or letters in the circles, providing a visual scanning and letter order cognitive component.

The main point is to use those fingertips to roll the play dough into small balls. By encouraging an open thumb webspace and fingers extended at the PIP and DIP joints, with a flexed MCP joints, the intrinsic muscles are are in action.

If you want to see this positioning, place your hand into a “duck bill” shape where the thumb and the tips of the fingertips are touching like a duck opening and closing it’s bill. This is the intrinsic muscles at work.

Free Play Dough Mat for Building Hand Strength

This play mat is available for FREE only for our Play Dough is Awesome newsletter group.  (This is a different email list than our regular subscribers.  If you’re on our subscriber list, you’ll still need to sign up for this one to receive the play dough freebies coming your way!)

Intrinsic Strength Play Dough Mat



    Have fun!

    Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

    Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

    Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

    Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

    Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

    Paprika Natural Play Dough Recipe

    This month’s sensory dough is all about the natural ingredients.  We made this paprika spice play dough one rainy afternoon and can’t get enough of the rich scent while playing.  We used a basic stove-top recipe that uses all natural ingredients (except for the processed white flour) and was a fun experiment in natural sensory play dough!


    Paprika Spice Natural Play Dough Recipe

    Paprika Natural Play Dough Recipe

    This post contains affiliate links.


    This recipe is easy to make, using a basic (and classic) stove top recipe. 


    1 cup flour 
    1/2 cup salt
    1 cup water
    2 Tbsp oil
    2 tsp Cream of Tartar
    2-3 Tbsp Paprika


    On the stove top, heat all of the ingredients, mixing constantly  When the dough pulls together, turn it out on a floured surface.  Knead the dough until smooth.


    Now play! 


       Paprika Spice Natural Play Dough Recipe

    We used this dough in a few different play activities.  My Toddler loved this dough and I’m happy knowing that if she tastes a bit, it doesn’t have all of the extra ingredients that store bought dough has.  


    Have you made Natural Play Dough?  What kind?


    Stop by and see the other Natural Play Dough recipes from the Sensory Dough blogging team:


    Natural Play Dough with Natural Dye | Lemon Lime Adventures
    Natural Chamomile Playdough Recipe | Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tail

    Paprika Natural Play Dough Recipe | Sugar Aunts


      Paprika Spice Natural Play Dough Recipe


    Looking for more sensory play dough recipes?  Try these:


    Play Dough Math Activities

    If there is one thing we love, it’s play dough.  Another thing we love is creative learning.  Today we’re sharing creative math ideas using our favorite sensory and fine motor medium: Play Dough!  These 9 play dough activities have one thing in common, and that is creative ways to practice math skills and concepts.  Kids will love to practice math with play dough.  Now, which to try first?
    Ideas to use play dough in math.   Kids love this creative way to practice math skills and concepts.

    Creative Math Ideas Using Play Dough:



    Search and count play dough like School Time Snippets.


    Count apples with this play dough activity based on the book, Ten Apples Up on Top.


    For more counting, print off this apple play dough mat from The Preschool Toolbox.


    Teaching kids to count with playdough is fun with this counting activity from The Stay at Home Mom Survival Guide.


    You could also use rocks in play dough for counting, adding, and subtracting like we did.


    Practice subtraction with a play dough smash activity from Mama.Papa.Bubba.


    Or, if addition is what you need to practice, try this adding activity from Simple Fun for Kids.


    For basic math skills, explore numbers with play dough like Simple Fun for Kids did and The Farm Girl Initiative did here.


    Looking for more ideas?  Try using kinetic sand instead of play dough.  We used our own homemade kinetic sand with dominoes math.


    Play Dough can be very inexpensive to make, using ingredients you probably already have.  Some of our favorite homemade play dough recipes would be perfect in these math ideas.  Try these in math for free (or almost free) learning at home:
    Orange Zest salt dough recipe
    Little Blue and Little Yellow Foaming Dough
     Crayon Play Dough
    Glitter Glue Salt Dough Recipe


    This post is part of our month-long Learning with Free Materials series where we are sharing learning ideas for homeschoolers and school-extension activities using items that are free or mostly free (i.e. CHEAP or you already have in the home), and is part of the 31 Days of Homeschooling Tips as we blog along with other bloggers with learning at home tips and tools.

    Play Dough Scented with Body Wash

    Oh, how we love play dough!  This month on the 12 months of Sensory Dough series is scented dough.  I can’t wait to see what the other bloggers joining us have to share for scented sensory dough you can make at home.  The olfactory sense is a very powerful one.  Scents can be calming or alerting to children (and adults!) and can evoke memories.  Scented sensory play and activities are beneficial to children who are over-responsive or under-responsive to the sense of smell.  
     
    We created our scented dough with an item that it seems we always have around the house.   Body wash smells amazing, comes in so many scents, and it seems to multiply in the cupboard.  
     
    (OK, not really, but we do seem to have a TON of body wash.  All the time.)
     


    Make Play Dough scented with Body Wash

    Did you know you can make your own homemade scented play dough using body wash?  This stuff smells amazing and is so easy to make!

    This post contains affiliate links.  

    body wash play dough recipe

    We’ve got a ton of body wash collecting dust in our cupboard.  They come in as gifts, samples, collected from hotel stays…and they are definitely used…but today, we made dough!  This dough can use any scent of body wash, although different brands may change the dough’s consistency.  We trialed two recipes with this dough and came up with a soft, moldable, scented dough that we loved!


    For our dough, we used Bath and Body Works Velvet Sugar
    and Bath & Body Works Beautiful Day
    (which has a great apple-y scent).

    Shower gel scented play dough made with flour and baby powder. A fun sensory play experience!
     
    This dough is very easy to make.  The green dough used the Bath & Body Works Beautiful Day and baby powder and became a soft, moldable dough that was very soft to the touch.  The pink dough used Bath and Body Works Velvet Sugar and flour.  It was a firmer dough and not as soft to mold.
     

    Body Wash Sensory Play Dough Recipe

    To make the dough, add 1 TBSP body wash to 1/2 cup baby powder (or flour).  Mix together by hand to make a crumbly mixture.  Add 2 TBSP water and continue mixing.  The baby power will be difficult to mix with a utensil and mixing by hand is easier.  Add a few drops of food coloring and continue mixing.  The flour dough needed more kneading.  

    Time to play!  The body wash gives these doughs a great scent.  Many dough recipes that have salt lose the scent.  This recipe seems to hold it’s scent for a while after playing.  



    The pink dough (made with flour) was much more resistive and a greater workout for the hand muscles compared to the green (baby powder) dough.  If you’re looking for hand strengthening, the pink really worked those intrinsic muscles!

     

    Pretend Play with Play Dough

    Use your scented dough to make cookies with a great scent.  We made pink and green cookies.

     
    **Always supervise your child when playing with scented doughs.  This dough should not be ingested and the scent may encourage any child to taste. 
    Looking for more scented sensory dough ideas? 
     
     

    Cola Soda Pop Play Dough Recipe

    Call it cola, soda, pop…what have you…we are playing with it!  This sensory dough is no-bake and very cool to play with.  


    We are joining the the 12 months of sensory dough bloggers to bring you a No-Bake play dough recipe this month.  You can see TONS of fabulous ideas from these bloggers for all kinds of sensory doughs.  They’ve been mixing up dough for sensory fun all year long and you will definitely want to check them out.  


    Now it’s true that we love mixing up play dough and creating all kinds of concoctions.  Crayon play dough, anyone?  This month, September brings you no-bake play dough in the sensory dough series and we were more than happy to join in on the fun!  We made Cola Play Dough!

    cola soda pop no bake play dough recipe for sensory play

    No bake play dough recipe:


    We started with just a few ingredients.  This no-bake recipe is easy, I promise!  Flour, salt, cola.  And that’s it.

    Measure out 1 1/4 cups flour.  Stir in 2 Tbsp salt.  Make a small well in the center of the flour mixture.  Pour in 1/2 cup soda.  Watch the bubbles.

    Stir the mixture until the dough starts to pull together.  Then, plop the dough onto a counter or floured surface and knead, knead, knead.

    This is such a fun sensory experience for the kids (and mom).  The scent of the soda really is noticeable while mixing the dough up.  

    If your dough is too sticky, add a little more flour until it no longer sticks to your hands.

    This dough will last a few weeks in a closed plastic container or plastic bag pouch.  You will need to add a bit more flour the longer it sits.  It seems to get stickier the longer it sits.  

    We pulled out a few clear cups and straws to play with our soda pop dough.

    Ahhhh, refreshing 😉

    The straws were great for poking holes in the dough, too.  A great fine motor task!


    Don’t you want to play?

    Sight Word Manipulatives

    This sight word manipulatives activity is a great multisensory learning activity for hands-on learning sight words. Use this and all of our sight word activities to support learning with play!

    Sight Word Manipulatives

    A sight word manipulative is a learning tool designed to help children recognize and memorize sight words, which are common words that are frequently used in reading and writing. These manipulatives are typically physical objects that can be moved and arranged, such as flashcards, word blocks, or word wheels.

    Sight word manipulatives are designed to make the process of learning sight words more interactive and engaging for children. By providing a hands-on, tactile experience, these tools can help children better understand the spelling and meaning of sight words, as well as improve their reading fluency and comprehension.

    Examples of sight word manipulatives

    Examples of sight word manipulatives include:

    1. Flashcards: Cards with a single sight word printed on them that children can read and memorize.
    2. Word blocks: Small wooden or plastic blocks with sight words printed on them that children can arrange and manipulate to create sentences.
    3. Word wheels: Rotating wheels with sight words printed on them that children can spin to create new word combinations.
    4. Magnetic letters: Letters that children can arrange on a magnetic board to create sight words and sentences.
    5. Play Dough Words like the ones below!
     
     
     
    Sight Word manipulatives
     

    Clothes Pin Sight Words

     
    We love clothes pin activities because of the fine motor benefits. For young children who are working on handwriting for the first time, getting all of the pinch strength and grip strength through play is essential for developing pencil grasp and the underlying components of handwriting. 
     
    For this age, overall hand strength is often suffering. That’s where activities like this one help in more than one way.
     
    This clothes pin sight word activity fits the bill!
     
    For this sight word manipulative activity, you’ll need just a few items:
    1. Play dough
    2. Clothes pins
    3. Marker
    4. Cardstock or thick paper (like an index card)
    To set up the activity, you’ll need to:
    1. Cut small pieces of paper.
    2. Write the sight words on each piece of paper.
    3. Clip a clothes pin onto the piece of paper.
    4. Press the clothes pin into a ball of play dough.
     
    We’ve been playing a lot with our sight word cards. Did you see our Sight Word Scavenger Hunt post?
     
    One day we had the play dough out and we did a little playful learning with sight words.
     
    Big Sister worked those fine motor skills to pinch and pull little bits of play dough from a big lump.  She rolled little balls of dough…all great activities for strengthening the small muscles of the hands.
     
    Sigh Word Manipulatives
     
    After she had little balls of play dough formed, we pinched the sight word cards and stuck them into the dough.
     
    Big Sister loved this!  She would read the cards as we moved them around and she loved making crazy sentences.  It got a little silly 🙂
     
     
    This was such a fun way to practice our sight words.  
     

    Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

    Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

    Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

    Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

    Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.