Let’s go to the dough disco!

Give your child some dough – the bigger the piece and firmer the dough, the harder the children’s hands will work! Put your favourite disco track on, and start passing the dough from hand to hand. Making the gap bigger as the children grow in confidence. This will help to develop your toddler’s hand to eye coordination.

Now, encourage your child to pass the dough behind their back, to an area that you can’t see. They need to have a good knowledge of their bodies in order to pass the dough to an area they can’t see. They need to have a good internal map to know where their body parts are.

Pass the dough around and through the legs, either sitting down using language such as under and over, or standing up using language such as around and through. This will encourage the children to cross mid-lines on their bodies, top/bottom, left/right and in front/behind.

Pass the dough to each other. This is working on sharing skills, as well as sending and receiving skills (a skill that requires the child to look where the dough is coming from and where it is going to.)

We found a great song on YouTube – click the link, sing along and join in with the dough disco!

Play dough play dough disco (echo)
Play dough play dough disco

Verse:

Splat splat splat splat splat splat
Over to the other side
Splat splat splat splat splat splat
Now get ready to go

Chorus:

Pass pass pass it around
Go go go to the disco sound
Pass pass from hand to hand
Go go go to the disco sound
Pass pass pass it around
Go go go to the disco sound
Pass pass from hand to hand
Are you ready? STOP!

Repeat verse with the following:

Pinch
Roll
Squeeze
Play dough play dough disco