Fun Ideas to Use Playdough in the ESL Classroom




There is something so therapeutic about sitting at a table, manipulating playdough into various shapes, letters and items. It doesn’t even matter whether you are five or forty-five; there are clear benefits. Here are five ways in which you could use playdough to support learning in your ESL classroom.


1. Alphabet Cards


This pack of alphabet cards is perfect for use with your younger ESL learners when you are focusing on phonics – both letter sounds and letter names. Both upper- and lower-case letters are included. A really enjoyable game to play with these cards in groups is to give each child three or four and then a category, e.g. food. Children should turn over one of their cards at random and while they are constructing the letter using playdough, think of a food item starting with the chosen letter. For example, if they had turned over the letter c, they could have cheese.
 



2. Animals

It’s always interesting to learn the names of animals in English, comparing them to a child’s native tongue and spotting cognates (words that sound or look similar in other languages). With these animal playdough cards, you could start simply by practising saying the names of the animals. Then to challenge them a bit further, they could say “I like...” followed by the plural name of the animal, such as I like cats. To stretch them even further, you could use adjectives to describe them; for example, This is a brown cat.



3. Fairy Tales

Fairy tales offer so much variety when it comes to teaching the English language. These playdough cards are perfect to complement your topic. As the children are building the characters or objects from the stories, ask them questions about the text. For those who struggle, single-word answers would be expected; for your more able, stretch them by expecting more and asking open questions, such as Who was sleeping in Baby Bear’s bed?
 



4. Special Days

Learning about special days in your ESL classroom could easily be so much fun, bringing in food, drink, music and clothes to represent some of the customs and traditions. These playdough cards can work brilliantly alongside a topic, such as Christmas, Diwali, St Valentine’s Day, and will definitely encourage your students to do more speaking in the target language. Using these playdough cards with your younger learners can be ideal for picking up the basic vocabulary linked to special days. However, for older or more advanced learners, you can certainly add in some challenge. For example, provide them with the card and ask them to consider what the question might have been if their card is the answer.


 
 

5. Boom Cards – Digital Playdough


And finally, for those times when getting the playdough out will just be far too messy, here is a pack of digital playdough boom cards. Most of the fun that can be had with it but minus the need to clear up at the end of the session!








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