Valentine’s Day Playdough Cookies

Make Valentine’s Day playdough cookies and practice all kinds of skills while having lots of fun!

I made this Valentine’s Day batch of microwave playdough that is perfect for Valentine’s Day play! Add a baking tray, heart-shaped cookie cutters and beads as “sprinkles” and you have a lovely Valentine’s Day cookie-making activity.

This is a lovely invitation-to-play activity(like this), but educational too!   

We have three different size heart cookie cutters. W used that together with pink beads as sprinkles to make Valentine’s Day playdough cookies.

Playdough in itself is a great material to play with since it requires one to use finger and hand strength to manipulate it. Hand and finger strength are needed for writing and need lots of practice. With objects like beads, one is required to use fine motor skills to pick it up, and hand-eye coordination to place it where one wants it. 

Best of all is that you can change your masterpiece if you are not satisfied with the result(which is a common thing for a perfectionist child like mine) and to avoid frustration.

Here the cookie “sprinkles” (beads) were counted and compared.

Patterns were made while working that pincer grip.

The concept of largest to smallest was explored too!   

Like I mentioned at first, playdough activities are best when it is open-ended (invitation-to-play), but when your child shows an interest in learning concepts while playing, why not!

My daughter even played pretend: placing the “cookies” in the oven, complete with oven mitts and all(showing life skills)!

Note: small objects like beads can be hazardous. Play under supervision!

A fun playdough idea around Valentine’s Day! Change the colour of the playdough and the cutters to fit any theme or simply for fun learning as we did here.