So with The Husband working this weekend and me stuck for ideas I thought it might be a nice idea to set up a monster play dough invitation to play for my son. This is the first ‘proper’ invitation to play I’ve done so far and we had a bit of a wobbly start but as you’ll see it turned out really well!
I’ve always been a bit….wobbly about the idea of an invitation to play because, well, kids do just play don’t they?! But then I thought the other day about how I view things, about how you could show me a dress in Marc Jacobs and I’d love you FOREVER if you bought it for me, but show me the same dress crumpled in the bottom in my wardrobe and I’d probably cry because I have nothing to wear. Likewise, my son is a ‘discerning’ eater, but give him a bento inspired lunch and it’s happy faces all round.
With this in mind monster play dough seemed a good place to start because he adores play dough and I figured I probably had enough ‘stuff’ for a monster set up!
What I included:
Googly eyes
Pipe cleaners
Play dough (ours is a gorgeous neon set but we are totally colour mixers here so it’s now green)
Pasta dyed black
A monster shaped cutter
Craft sticks
The tray that I placed it in is actually a leftover tray from one of those Tesco’s fruit selections. Recycling in action!
If you haven’t dyed pasta before, all you do is pop it in a bowl, add some food dye, wiggle it around a bit and then leave it out to dry. I found the drying took longer than it does with rice so this is a good one to prep the night before or if your kids are in preschool at all.
At first my son was a bit hesitant but after a bit of coaxing he was really into it, especially when he realised that his play dough monsters could be new villains to fight Batman! My husband came home while we were playing and he loved it too, all of us inventing new characters, it was loads of fun!
I think I’ll have to try a few more invitations to play, maybe some more Halloween inspired ones! If you’ve tried it with your kids do let me know how it went, I always love to share ideas with people!
This is so cute, I love monster stuff, so I had to take a peek at this post. It seems like a fun thing to make a destroy over and over again. Perfect for little people!
Ha! Yes the destroying is normally pretty popular round ours too!!
Those green monsters are so adorable =) #letkidsbekids
Thank you 😀
Love this idea, I must try it with my little girl, I think she’s just about old enough now to ‘get it’!
Ah, well it took a little while for us but once he got it we had loads of fun 🙂
We love an invitation to play! A great idea i m off to pin! #letkidsbekids
That is so cute! Love your monsters! Thank you for sharing with us #pintorials
What a great idea! Getting this set up for the next time I see my nephew – and the dyed pasta is ingenious. (stopping by from #pintorials)
Thank you, I hope he loves it too!
Great idea and those monsters look really fun. Play dough is always such an imagination sparking activity, especially when you add a few extra items into the mix.
Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids
These are so cool – the black dyed pasta is great addition. Although I thought it was a drill bit at first… now that would be a scary monster!
Ha! That would be amazing, although possibly not a great idea with small kids 😉
I have always been a bit ?? about invitations to play but I have recently started setting up stuff for Fran to do when she gets back from nursery so I think I have been doing it without realising! I’ve died rice before never tried pasta but will give it a go. #pintorials
Oh I LOVE this. My boy has been a bit down lately and this could hopefully cheer him up a bit. Will give it a try.
So glad to see on Instagram that it worked! 😀