Hi! I’m Louise and I blog over at Building Blocks and Acorns. As well as an absolute LOVE of nature and outdoor activities, we’re all about sensory exploration. Homemade playdough is a firm favourite of ours and my little boy (who is known as ‘Darth’ over on my blog page, thanks to my husband’s love of all things Star Wars,) loves helping to make it, too!

This year, with ‘Darth’ being old enough to get excited about bonfire night, we decided to make some firework playdough to use as a sensory and conversational opportunity. The great thing about this, too, is that it lasts for 4 months in an air-tight container, so we can even use it for New Years Playdough, too! The recipe is derived from the playdough recipe used for the ‘Starry-Sky’ space themed playdough on my blog website, the only differences being the added glitter and the use of black liquid food-colouring for the intense black colour, rather than gel-colouring.

We had LOTS of messy fun making the playdough… and we made LOTS of it! I really wanted there to be enough for creating a night-sky scene (and also for dividing up into different playdough balls for counting opportunities, too!) The accessories also really made this a great activity for developing skills as well as having fun, too!

Ta-Da! The firework playdough looked amazingly sparkly once we had finished with it and the vibrant colours of the accessories surrounding it, looked SO inviting! It really was an ‘invitation to play.’

Fireworks Playdough Accessories

Pipe cleaners (including metallic pipe cleaners)
Gold plastic beads
Gold and silver gift-wrap bows
Purple feathers
Coloured pom-poms
Coloured lollipop sticks
Clear glass beads
Glow-stick bracelets (not shown in the photos – these didn’t photograph very well, but looked amazing in real-life, stuck into the play dough!)
Clean dish brushes
Playdough cutting and rolling tools (why not use this dough to develop early cutting skills?)

Using the Fireworks Playdough

‘Darth’ used his fine-motor skills to carefully twist and push the pipe-cleaners into the huge ball of playdough. He LOVED pushing the lollipop sticks in and it really helped to develop his pincer-grip with his thumb and fingers. Once he was happy with the items he’d put into the ball of dough, he went “BOOM!” and made excited firework gestures with his hands. Then the rolling pin came out…

We made lots of different firework shapes, whilst developing ‘Darths’ language skills by describing each one and creating different firework sounds to accompany them. We used dish-washing brushes (new and clean ones,) to imprint firework shapes. Again, these looked great in real-life, but the photos just didn’t do it justice!

I LOVE how sparkly and magical this playdough looks. We’ll be using it with glow in the dark stars etc. as space playdough as well as bringing this ‘kit’ back out for New Years. I’d strongly recommend re-visiting successful activities with your child, to allow them to build upon their previous experience. Keep it in an air-tight container and use it again and again for 4 months!

If you love playdough as much as we do, then come and take a look at these other playdough ideas, recipes and activities and sign-up to receive the Building Blocks and Acorns Newsletter for all of the latest updates on a range of activities.