Apple Pie Play Dough

 

 

Make some apple pie play dough as a fun pretend play activity and as great practise for fine motor skills and coordination!

 

After making the naturally scented apple play dough last week, we went straight on to playing with it in different ways. One of the favourites the girls enjoyed was playing an imaginative play game of being bakers, cooking up some delicious apple pies in their pretend play kitchen!

We made another batch of our super-quick, no-cook play dough, this time leaving it naturally coloured and adding in a few drops of vanilla essence to make it into pretend pastry.

Then we found some mini ceramic pie dishes, rolling pins, play scissors and plastic knives, and set them out ready to get pretend-play baking! 

 

They used a couple of the crates of pretend apples that they had made using the apple play dough, and set about cutting these up to make the filling for their pies first.

Then they rolled out the pastry dough and started to line the bases of their dishes. We had already talked about how we make real pies, and they have had experience of doing this together with me in the past, so they remembered some of the details!

They popped their delicious apple fillings inside then set about making the toppings to close the pies off. They used the knives and scissors to cut strips of equal width, then had a go at laying them over the top in a criss-cross, lattice work pattern.

We talked about weaving and how to lay one piece over the top of the other and then under, to join them all together. This was tricky for them but made great fine motor skills practise and concentration!

 

Then they went around the edges and trimmed off the extra dough, squishing it down to secure it.

Miss 6 added an apple embellishment to the top of hers before pretend-play baking it in her play kitchen until it was ready to eat!

We also made some pies with closed tops and cut out leaf shapes to decorate with. When we cut inside them it was fun to see the apples peeking out!

This play dough can be stored and re-used for up to 6 months, as long as it is kept clean.

Next steps after this fun imaginative play are to make some individual sized REAL apple pies to eat and share with friends!

What they are learning as they play:

physical: fine motor skills and co-ordination, weaving, layering, squeezing, rolling, cutting, trimming

maths: measuring by eye, cutting to size, filling and emptying

creative: imaginative play based on real life experiences, using one object to represent another in play

Looking for more play dough ideas? See our extensive play dough recipe and ideas collection here!