Bet you didn’t know it’s National Play-doh Day today, did you? Not exactly sure why I know, I guess I just stumbled across it online somehow. I’m also not sure what you’re supposed to do on National Play-doh Day and who even recognizes or sponsors it. But, in honor of National Play-doh Day, I thought it would be appropriate to post of picture of my son playing with…yep, you guessed it…Play-doh! :)
Kids love Play-doh. Parents love the idea of fun, quiet, creative play…but, deep down, most of us hate the mess it makes and detest the fact that the stuff dries out after just a few months no matter how tightly you put on the lid! A lot of my friends only let their kids use Play-doh outside so they don’t have to worry about cleaning up those gazallion little rice-sized pieces that get dropped on the floor. I’m not that hard-core, but I do insist that it is an in-the-kitchen toy so I only have to worry about vacuuming the tile and not the carpet. (Although Play-doh smooshed in grout isn’t too fun to clean either!)
Usually, I let Nathan use Play-doh at the kitchen table, especially now that he’s tall enough to sit on the grown-up chairs. But, back when he was smaller, I’d just pull out our Lifetime Personal Table and let him go to town. And even nowadays, if I’m trying to get dinner ready and don’t want to have to clean up Play-doh to set the dinner table, I’ll still pull out the Lifetime Personal Table. It actually works quite well since it adjusts in height so I can make it low enough for him to sit or stand. So many of those Play-doh press toys require lots of “leverage” that you can only get if you are pressing down from a standing height so a short table is better than our kitchen table anyway. (I usually set the Personal Table at the 24” height.)
The other day, Nathan was using Play-doh on the Lifetime table and dinner was ready. He was excited because he didn’t have to put away his creations to eat dinner! After dinner, he immediately went back to making snakes, rolling out make-believe pizzas, and designing fabulous jewelry for me to wear.
Clean up is a cinch on the Lifetime table (although I still dread doing it!). The Play-doh wipes right off the plastic and doesn’t get smeared in the wood grain or in the table-leaf cracks like it does on our kitchen table.
One more thing. If you’re like me, your Play-doh creative juices are about as dried up as your Play-doh and you can’t bear to roll out yet another snake! So, try some of these fun, new design ideas I found on Hasbro’s Fresh Idea Gallery.
Happy National Play-Doh Day!