Insect Garden Play Dough Activity

Plastic bug toys + play dough = the cutest insect garden play dough activity! Observing kids using their imaginations and creativity while they play is the good stuff.

Table of Contents:

1. Connect learning and play with this insect garden play dough activity
2. The top five reasons why we love insect garden play dough
3. Materials
4. Directions
5. How is play dough a sensory activity?
6. Fun children’s books to pair with your insect garden play dough activity
7. FAQ

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Connect learning and play with this insect garden play dough activity

What do kids love? Bugs! Play dough! Playing!

An insect garden play dough activity combines three of their favorite things in an easy activity that can be used for days, even weeks.

We have been doing this activity for years, and our future has even more bugs and play dough in it (hooray!).

Related: Check out our epic 10-foot coloring pages! We have a bug theme, a flower theme, and dozens more to choose from.

The top five reasons why we love insect garden play dough

Once I mastered homemade playdough, my life truly began.

Whipping up a batch of play dough is easy, inexpensive, and yields an endless amount of goodness.

With a ball of brown play dough and simple props, kids:

1. Practice fine motor skills (pinching, rolling, poking, pushing)
2. Use their imaginations (building homes, naming the bugs, creating play scenarios)
3. Share materials and practice social skills
4. Build vocabulary (practicing insect names, naming ingredients, following a recipe)
5. Have fun (and when kids are having fun, they’re 1,000,000x more likely to learn)

Don’t miss some of our other favorite play dough invitations

• Play Dough Spring Flowers
• Play Dough Monsters
• Mystery Play Dough Colors
• Kool-Aid Play Dough

Materials

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• Brown play dough
• Bug and insect toys – we used the large class-sized set, but we also love our adorable smaller set 
• Greenery – I plucked apart a greenery pick from Dollar Tree, but you can also go outside and get leaves, sticks, grass, and flowers for free (we love doing this, too!)
• Play dough tools – optional
• Shallow tray – optional

Directions

Set out your brown homemade or store-bought play dough, plastic bug and insect toys, and greenery.

Invite your child to create their insect gardens using the props and materials.

At the end of your play session, store your play dough in an airtight container for several days (or weeks).

Tip: In the preschool classroom, we make a fresh batch of play dough on Sundays for the following Monday through Friday. On Wednesday or Thursday, we will introduce a new material (ex: scissors, gems, flowers, etc.) to make the activity feel fresh and new.

How is play dough a sensory activity?

Let’s examine it using our five senses: sight, touch, smell, sound, and taste.

When kids are playing with play dough, they’re using their senses of:

• Sight when looking at the colors mix
• Touch by feeling, pulling, and squishing the dough
• Smell when holding the dough near their noses
• Sound by listening to what it sounds like when it’s pounded and pressed
• Taste if your child samples a few grains of salt when following the recipe

When an activity uses several senses, it’s called a multi-sensory activity.

Fun children’s books to pair with your insect garden play dough activity

We love children’s books for story time and also love adding a book or two to the play dough table as a reference.

For example, when kids play with this activity, they can look in their insect books to get ideas for building habitats, making insects, and endless play scenarios.

FAQ