My strong hands

These activities are for children aged 27-36 months and align with stage 5 of the Developmental Journal Babies Visual Impairment (DJVI).

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Safety first

Try to encourage your child to take part in making the dough. They could help to measure ingredients, pour using their hands or a stir with a spoon.

Consider colour contrasts between the dough and the working station as well as the impacts of lighting. For example, a white, easy wipe cloth, red dough and blue cutting or rolling tools. A darker coloured dough may be better suited to your child’s needs than a lighter coloured dough.

You can guide your child by completing the activity yourself as they place their hands over yours to feel the different actions and movements.

Spaghetti: take a large amount of playdough and ask your child to pull it apart using two hands to create long, stringy pieces like spaghetti shapes.
Meatball: ask your child to roll the playdough to make meatballs. Repeat using the opposite hand. Place the spaghetti and meatballs on a plate.
Sausages: make sausages encouraging your child to either use one or two hands to roll playdough into a sausage shape.
Pancakes: roll a piece of playdough into a ball and ask your child to use the palm of their hand to flatten the balls into pancakes.
Doughnuts: make a ball and then flatten it. Encourage your child to use a gentle touch and with pincer grip take a small amount of playdough from the middle creating a doughnut.

Please supervise your child at all times while completing any of these activities.