We’ve been squishing, squeezing, stamping and snipping with our Modelling Favourites Pack from Early Years Resources this week. A fantastic kit for practising fine motor skills and fostering creativity.

Included in the huge pack are eight (brightly coloured) very soft dough, a wide variety of negative and positive stampers, a wonderful selection of shape cutters, easy to use scissors and wooden rolling pins!

What did we like about it? 

• Helps Develop Fine Motor Skills- Moulding, rolling, stamping and creating using the dough helps develop fine motor skills, building up the tiny muscles in the hands and fingers that are required to help learn to write, do up zips, use a knife and fork etc. The stampers and scissors are carefully designed to be easy to hold and use for young children and those with additional needs.

• Therapeutic– There’s something quite relaxing about sitting down and playing with dough. In my experience, it can be a brilliant, sensory tool for helping children to relax when they find themselves getting frustrated or anxious. I’ve found this can be particularly useful for some children with ASD.

• Hand strength- Activities such as squeezing and using the rolling pins to rolling out the dough helps develop hand strength which can build stamina for tasks like holding a pencil for a period of time.

• Cutting skills– I particularly loved that the Modelling Favourites Pack includes Plastic Safety Scissors to encourage children to have a go at cutting playdough. A fun activity for practising scissor skills and again- developing hand strength.

• Vast Range of Cutters- We loved the range of cutters from insects to dinosaurs there’s cutters to appeal to all  children.