This gross motor game is one easy way to entertain your toddler, and the best part is, you only need two supplies to set this up in minutes!
Throwing objects at a target is really hard to do, and it’s also so, so much fun.
Normally, I shy away from gross motor games that involve throwing things, but little balls of play dough were perfect for us.
Let me explain why.
- The odd shape of the play dough means it can’t roll very far.
- Play dough is kind of sticky, so it has a better chance of landing where my toddler threw it.
- Play dough doesn’t bounce.
Have I sold you on this activity yet?
How to Set Up Play Dough Target Practice
To start, you’ll need these two things:
- masking tape or painter’s tape
- play dough
At first, I tried taping circles to the floor, but that’s really hard. So I decided to do squares.
Squares are easy. Squares, I can do.
I made three squares nested on the floor with painter’s tape.
Easy, peasy.
How to Play the Game
My daughter, Elena (age 3), is standing really close to the target because it’s really hard for her to throw with accuracy. If your kids have no problem with this, they can stand further away. But this distance worked great for us.
All I asked her to do was to gently throw the play dough and try to get it to stick inside one of the squares.
It took her a few tries to figure out how much strength to use to throw the play dough.
Once she figured it out, she was able to get it in the squares more often, though there were still a few that went wild.
We didn’t do points or keep track of anything. We simply celebrated whenever the play dough balls landed inside any of the squares.
If she were older, I’d definitely try to keep score. Maybe 5 points for the littlest square, 2 for the medium square, and 1 for the largest square?
We did this activity indoors, but you could most definitely do it outdoors as well. Chalk would probably easier to use than tape, plus you could draw actual circles.
Your Turn to Play THis Play Dough Target Practice Game
This play dough target practice game was super easy to set up and fulfilled all of my toddler’s gross motor needs for the afternoon.
I hope your kids enjoy it, too!
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