Pay us a visit, and you’ll likely end up at the kitchen table “playing Play-Doh” with Maura. It amazes me how it can entertain her for hours on end. Not only does it delight her for the longest time, but it’s relaxing. Nap time may no longer exist, but I know I’ll get a good chunk of quiet time when she’s molding something out of this colorful compound! It’s affordable, too, so I don’t mind vacuuming dried up pieces off the floor, or the fact that she eventually mixes all the colors together. That’s part of the fun!
A few months ago, Play-Doh launched their Play-Doh Play-Dates website, chockfull of fun and engaging Play-Doh Play-Date ideas. From a Breakfast Diner in May, to a Beach Party over the summer, and Back to School in August, every month there’s a new theme. This month is Pizza Shop and next, “Haunted House,” just in time for Halloween! Each theme includes “Fresh Ideas” – step-by-step instructions to create cool things out of Play-Doh – as well as printable crafts and healthy snack recipes. You’re given the tools to base an entire play date around Play-Doh!
Now that Maya is at school, I’m always looking for fun things to do with Maura during the day. The Pizza Shop theme sounded like the perfect way to spend an afternoon! Pizza partayyy! We started off by making our own pizza for lunch. There’s a recipe on the Play-Dates website for English Muffin Pizza, but I took some Boboli pre-made pizza dough, had Maura spread it with pizza sauce, sprinkled with mozzarella cheese, and I put it under the broiler for a few minutes. Easy peasy. Sorry, no photos of this. We gobbled them right up.
I had already printed the pizza box and pizza peel PDFs from the Play-Date website. A menu and ‘Open’ sign are also available, but Maura didn’t really show interest in those. The pizza box, on the other hand, she wanted me to print and make a bunch of those. “At least 50” was her exact request. Apparently she was expecting to fill a lot of pizza orders! We settled on one that we would then “recycle” LOL. The pizza peel, I ended up making out of cardboard so Maura could actually pick up the pizza itself. Just using printer paper made it too flimsy. I thought both of these printables were really great. We’ll also use them when we crack open our Play-Doh Pizza Shop playset.
As for the Fresh Ideas, the website provides step-by-step instructions on how to make a calzone, a pizza (of course), all the toppings, and a cup of gelato. The pizza is what we focused on, as it’s Maura’s favorite food! She made several, each one unique.
“Endless hours of imaginative play” is what the Play-Doh Play-Dates website claims, and I have to say that assertion is more than accurate. I’m looking forward to trying out past themes, and seeing what surprises they come up with in the coming months! Visit Play-Doh Play-Dates to see for yourself!
P.S. Download the free Play-Doh Play-Dates mobile app for on-the-go fun!
P.P.S. Tomorrow, September 16th, is National Play-Doh Day! Woohoo!
Disclosure: This post is part of a SocialMoms product evaluation, for which I’ve been selected. I’ve been compensated for my time with 8,000 My SocialMoms Rewards Points. The opinions expressed in this post are mine and don’t necessarily reflect the opinions of SocialMoms or Play-Doh.
