Playdough is a super learning tool.  It is inexpensive and can be made right at home.  My favorite recipe is the cooked kind but I have successfully made the dough that uses boiling water. Mix up a batch.  Combine yellow and red coloring to make orange and add a drop or two of blue to make a brown. Then, play in the mud!! Here’s a list of learnings:

• have your child roll out the letters of his/her name        -roll out circles, triangles, rectangles, squares
•  make the shapes of the numbers 1-10  and roll out some little balls to show how many for each
• practice cutting; it’s fantastically easy with playdough      -make people or animals and tell a story
•  make some different shapes: flat, round, tall, short, long, curved, straight, etc
• grown-ups can form the letters of the alphabet and let kids guess, or kids can make them, too

Building vocabulary, developing fine motor coordination, practicing letters, numbers and counting are just a few of the skills that can be reinforced with playdough. Best of all, it’s almost as much fun as playing in the mud.