Activities have been canceled due to the pandemic, but one that can still remain is National Play-Doh Day! This annual “holiday” is September 16. Here are three ways you could celebrate in a socially distant world.
1. Video Chat Challenges: Get together with your fellow Play-Doh lovers on a group video chat. Come up with challenges for everyone to make, then show your creation and vote for who did it best. Ideas could include: a Play-Doh figure of someone you all know, a food item, a school, sports equipment, transportation… the list goes on! For added flair, set a time limit to make the creations.
2. Word Doh: Again, get together with your fellow Play-Doh lovers. Have everyone make a letter out of their Play-Doh. Show the letter on the screen. See who can come up with the most words given those letters in a given amount of time.
3. Interdisciplinary Doh: Many of us are learning virtually this school year. Sneak in some academics into your celebration.
– Look up some homemade Play-Doh recipes, make them, and see which ones you like best and why. Kids could come up with an evaluation rubric to score the dough. Each kid could put together a presentation (like the show Shark Tank) as to why theirs is the best.
– Play-Doh was invented in Cincinnati in the mid-1950s originally as a wallpaper cleaner. Have your kids research what else was going on in the world at that time. (For us who are local to Ohio, have them research Cincinnati at this time.)
– Have your kids write or narrate a story set in the 1950s and have them include how they think Play-Doh evolved from a cleaner to a toy.
No matter how you celebrate, remember Play-Doh gives us all an opportunity to escape for a little while. Like life, it can be messy. But each time, we pick up the pieces and make something beautiful out of it.
What beauties will you make on #NationalPlayDohDay?
