Halloween Playdough Kit

In my opinion, play dough is the ultimate resource for toddlers and preschoolers, which is why we create a version of this Halloween playdough kit every year.

Making playdough, and then playing with it, is such a great way for young children to develop their fine motor skills and hand strength. Playdough is also a low-mess sensory play activity too – what a winner!

Furthermore, creating themed activities helps very young children to make connections to the world around them. If you celebrate Halloween as part of your Autumn family traditions, then this will help your child to understand the celebrations in a playful way.

Suggested Resources:

I always recommend that you use what you have around the house, rather than buy items specifically for play – that is, unless, you intend to use them year after year.

Look around your house for items that might go with a Halloween theme – beads, pompoms or craft sticks in black and orange, for example.

Here’s what we used in our Halloween playdough kit:

• small beads

• craft sticks

• homemade orange pumpkin spice playdough 

• homemade basic playdough, dyed black

• small wooden Halloween decorations from a local craft store

• paper cases

• A GLIS box from IKEA

Handy resources to create playdough invitations include:

• cork place mats or serving boards

• cake tins

• additional Halloween decorations – e.g. spooky houses or spiders

• Autumnal loose parts 

Whilst we did make our own playdough here (recipes linked above), it is absolutely not essential! If you don’t have the time to make the playdough yourself, or would simply prefer not to, there’s plenty of brands available. In addition to the classic ‘Play Doh’ brand, there’s now so many small businesses that sell beautifully scented playdough. Search etsy or Instagram to find businesses near to where you live.

Play Ideas for a Halloween playdough kit:

The whole idea of this Halloween playdough kit is to provide a simple playdough invitation for your children. There’s many different directions your child might want to take this activity. Here are some ideas if you need some inspiration:

• spooky small world (as shown in the photo below)

• make faces (as shown in the photo above)

• use Halloween themed cookie cutters to make shapes

• roll natural resources such as pinecones in the dough to make prints

• create pumpkins

• make a bookish themed activity with your favourite Halloween book

• make monsters

This post originally featured on my website, thisplayfulhome.com. I am now in the process of transferring all of my work onto Substack. You can read more about the changes here.