This Gingerbread Play Dough Cookie Decorating Activity is a fun December activity for kids at home or preschool. It smells terrific and is great for helping children strengthen their hand muscles and fine-motor skills.
Hey Lovelies! I just wanted to share a fun and easy idea for a Christmas activity for kids to do this December at home or Preschool.
It’s a “Christmas baking” activity that has the kids decorating pretend Christmas cookies out of gingerbread-scented play dough.
The inspiration for this Gingerbread Cookie Play Dough was the Christmas Cookie Play dough we made last year.
That activity was such a hit with my daycare kids, I wanted to do it again this year, in a slightly different way.
Colouring the play dough with a bit of brown food colouring and scenting it with spices turned it into a completely different activity for the kids.
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It’s simple to set up. You just need play dough and a few buttons, beads and ribbon scraps. The kids love it when I set up an activity for them in these coloured trays. I got mine at the dollar store, but you can find them here too. Somehow these trays make an activity all the more interesting or special.
Add in a few mini rolling pins and a few festive cookie cutters, and you kids will feel like they’re decorating real Christmas cookies!
The best recipe for your Gingerbread Play Dough:
We used our very favourite homemade play dough recipe for our gingerbread activity. It’s this easy no-cook recipe from The Imagination Tree.
We added a bit of brown food colouring and some ginger and cinnamon and it looked and smelled just like the real thing.
I love this play dough because it’s really soft. It stays soft too, even if it’s left out for hours, so you’ll be able to offer this activity every day, all December long at home, daycare or preschool.
And while your little ones are pretending to do their Christmas baking, they’ll be strengthening their hand muscles and fine motor skills!
Hope you give this a try with your kids this month. If they’re anything like my hooligans, they’ll love it!
A few more Christmas Activities the kids will love:
Gingerbread Village from Re-Purposed Milk Cartons
Mini Gingerbread Houses to Decorate
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
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