play-dough impressions

The children discovered that pressing objects into our play-dough left impression. Every now and again some children would return to that discovery and show me what they made. I decided to make a formal lesson for them out of this discovery, so the children helped me make a special batch of play-dough especially for the activity. We put it on the art table and then set out in search of interesting objects to press into the dough. They found bottle caps, shells, pine cones, scissors, necklaces, and other miscellaneous items from the recycle center (this photo reminded me it was time to tidy up the studio, lol)

A view of our work area:

Pressing corn:

Sometimes the dough stuck to the table so we used a spatula to loosen it:

When I asked the children what the impressions reminded them of some children were quite literal. Scissor impressions were scissors.

This one, however reminded us of an owl:

Some children noticed the pattern the objects made like circles or rectangles. Once they began to understand the particular cause and effect of their actions they made comments like, 'I want to see what happens when I use the pumpkin'.

The end!