Play-based Playdough

So, my preschool at the park is going to run. It will be mobile - packed up each night after class - and take place in a lovely section of the gym with huge windows and a new plum colored rug, compliments of the park board. Having the preschool starting soon has helped me snap out of some recent parental apathy and up my game. I have been practicing all kinds of activities and cooperation techniques and been having a lot of fun watching the boys get into all kinds of projects.

Just today I made some good old-fashioned playdough, didn't even put color in it, and set them up with rollers and cutters and whatevers. Then I brought some animals over, which always seem to be a welcome addition to any activity, and the kids made footprints in their flattened dough. They also did some extruding. I extruded some thick noodles and gave each boy one. Art wrapped his around his Brachiasaurus' neck and said it was a scarf.
 

Lewis cut his into pieces and put it on his firetruck. It was the hose.
 

Just today Art asked me why I wanted to teach a preschool and the kinds of things the boys have been coming up with this week is why. I want to continue to be inspired by how really young kids, not yet tarnished by the rigors of right and wrong answers, can take something as straight-forward as a playdough noodle and manipulate into multiple new and surprising things. May their minds only continue to expand and never narrow!