My son has always loved to dig in the dirt and play with his construction vehicles. There was a time when he only wanted me to check out construction site themed books out of the library. He loved them so much I made him a construction site themed cake for his birthday when he was three.
Recently we read the book Road Work Ahead by Anastasia Suen. It is a wonderful story about a road trip to visit grandmother. Along the way a family sees all kinds of construction equipment doing work. There are jackhammers digging holes in the road. Cherry pickers helping worker change light bulbs in street lights. Dump trucks filled with dirt from a job site crossing the road. The family has so many vehicles and construction sites to take in. Reading this book inspired me to create a play dough activity for JDaniel that would involve some of the construction toys he has.
Play Dough Fun
I set up an invitation for JDaniel to explore construction equipment and a job site in a large plastic zipper bag. The bag contained play dough smooshed into a toaster oven tray and several of JDaniel’s construction equipment toys.
He was told that I had it for him and he could carry it outside or play with it inside. JDaniel decided to carry it outside to the driveway. There he spread out the equipment and thought about what to do. After a couple of seconds, he started digging and prying up the play dough with a front loader. Then he switched to smoothing the play dough back down with a roller. The play dough easily flattened out and filled the hole he had created.
Excavating play dough was fun too. Digging holes through the play dough landscape required manipulating the scoop carefully to pick the play dough up.
What I like about this activity!
My boys love playdoh.
Looks like JDaniel had a great time!
My son used to be CRAZY for trucks and construction equipment back in the day. I used to know the names of so many machines from reading him book after book on the subject.
I love watching my kids in imaginative play. It’s just so wonderful to see how their minds work! –Lisa
my boys love trucks and playdough. Our boys would have so much fun together:-) I love all the bright colors of the playdough. It is so much fun to listen to them as they play:-)
My grandson would love this activity.
Looks like so much fun. My kids loved playing with playdough.
I bet my husband would love this!
Looks like fun! My 5 year old would gasp at the mixing of playdough colors 🙂
Looks like he had a large time! I need to do this for my son so he can play while I garden. He is forever putting his dump trucks to work in my veggies 🙂
I was so the Playdough Nazi! Only in the kitchen on the tile floor on a special table and then when they started preschool it became an “only at school” thing. I picked too much out of places it wasn’t supposed to be!
That looks so fun! love the cute pics! thanks so much for sharing!
My daughter would love everything about this! I’m sure my son will too soon. He’s just at the metting point of being a baby and a toddler. He seems to LOVE trucks so far. His toys and the ones he sees in person. His eyes widen at the big ones. The cake you made is fabulous! I love the candy corn as orange cones. I think that’s brilliant!
I haven’t cracked open the playdoh yet (my son is 3) but I just might this summer and do this outdoors!
cute idea, I should try this with my toddler he would love to play with his trucks in Play-Doh!
I never thought of using playdough! Looks like fun!
That looks like such a great, fun activity! I bet my kids would enjoy it too!
this is a brilliant idea!
It does look like a perfect open-ended activity! It looks like JDaniel had a lot of fun with it.
We will have to add that book to our list this week. Thanks for the recommendation. I made a construction themed birthday cake for my obsessed construction vehicle son.
This activity looks like so much fun! And also like my husband’s worst nightmare. 😉 He has a thing about playdough colors being mixed together. Haha. We drive him crazy. 🙂
That’s a GREAT idea!
we have the same tractor set…
actually 2 of them. he used to play with them in the sandbox… but i think he would LOVE to play with them in playdoh… need to go buy more i guess 😉
great idea .. thanks as always
We do play dough every day, although I’ve never added construction vehicles….
He thought of so many different ways to work with the playdough. He’s going to be such a smart young man…wait, he already is!
Fun idea! My boys love construction themed activities!
For a long time we read books about construction equipment and learned with construction equipment.