For many of our play dough activities, your little one is engaging in the important skill of bilateral coordination.

This refers to coordinating the left and right sides of the body in a purposeful way.

When students use two hands to manipulate dough (as they did in this project), they are learning how to attune the fine motor movement associated with the left side of the brain to the right. Play dough is one of our favorite ways to learn, because it is so easy and so fun!

Because our second week of desert activities revolved around vegetation, your little one participated in creating several cacti and succulents out of a variety of materials. For this activity specifically, students were encouraged to place toothpicks into play dough. Once situated, they were then directed to slide pink beads onto the toothpicks.

This entire week involved reading a book about the Sonoran Desert, so we enjoyed talking about the great saguaro. We started the week with creating cacti out of play dough, and then moved onto zucchini (using most of the same materials)! Students loved creating their plants out of food for Tuesday’s project. When finished, we displayed our creations, while using the extra pieces as a yummy snack!