You’ve come to the right site if you’re looking for straightforward, inexpensive Play-Doh birthday party ideas! It doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive to throw your little love a fun party. Freddie recently turned 3 and while we were torn between a lego or a playdough party theme, with all of these brilliant party ideas below we were convinced to choose team play doh.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
- Fun Games with Playdough
- Fine Motor Skills Playdough Activities
- Playdough Decorations
- Playdough Party – Food Ideas
- Playdough Party Favors
- Playdough Birthday Cake
- Why Trust My Toddler Life?
Playdough Party Ideas: Fun Games With Playdough
Halloween Playdough Tray
If your toddler’s birthday is close to Halloween, try this fun idea by What Can We Do With Paper & Glue
Play-Doh Tools
When it comes to Play-doh tools, there are so many options out there. . I went and bought quite a few playdough tools from my neighbourhood dollar store to ensure maximum fun for a minimal cost. This is a fun, budget friendly option to start with.
Unicorn Playdough
If you’re feeling really brave, why not get the kids involved in making their own ‘unicorn playdough’ like this idea from Craft Create Cook
Playdough Ping-Pong Maze Game
- Children each create a big long Play-Doh spiral/maze/snake for the Play-Doh Ping-Pong Maze.
- At the beginning of their spiral, drop a ping pong ball.
- The ping pong ball is moved around the maze by the child blowing a straw.
- Whoever finishes first wins!
Kids love a competition !
Outer-Space Playdough
For aspiring astronauts, Fantastic Fun and Learning has a terrific space play dough project. Set it out for kids to play with as they study the planets and the night sky.
Decorate Cupcakes With Edible Playdough
A simple edible playdough recipe can be found here. The goal of this activity is to use the edible playdough to make a cute cupcake topper and to add sprinkles to a pre-made cupcake (and eat!). The concept of edible playdough was novel and highly intriguing (oooh aaaahhh) for the little audience we had.
Rainbow Playdough
Check out this idea from Picklebums
Fine Motor Skills Playdough Activities
1-4 year olds are at just the right age to be working on their fine motor skills. Lucky for you, we just hosted a play-doh party with a bunch of kids in this age bracket, and these are the playdough activities that were a hit (plus a few that we didn’t get the chance to try!).
Playdough Monster Kits
Get creative with this fun playdough idea from The Simply Crafted Life.
Playdough Creation Station
Create a Play-Doh table using Play-Doh pots, cutters, rolling pins, and decorations for “sprinkles” (glitter, sprinkles, candles, and cupcake cases/papers). Let the kids’ creativity soar as they create their own Play-Doh designs. So much fun!
Playdough Pictionary
This one is great for developing both fine motor skills and teamwork!
- Team up the kids in the group.
- Give Play-Doh to each team. We like to assign a few different colors to each squad. Create cards with a few *basic words (letters if toddler aged children) written on each one.
- Every team receives a set.
- One member of each team will select a word/letter from the deck of cards when you say “GO.”
- With the help of the play dough, they will try to “SCULPT” that word for their team. There may be no speaking, making sounds, or acting. They are limited to using playdough.
- The remainder of their crew tries to determine what they are producing.
- The first team to get to 5 wins.
Playdough Decorations
Playdough Balloon Backdrop
Any kid’s party looks great with balloons, or even a balloon backdrop if you want to get fancy. If, like me, you just want to get lazy (ha!) just buy a bunch of brightly colored balloons from the local discount store.
Play-Doh Bunting
Create vibrant bunting by cutting out circles of colourful card and hanging them with string or colourful homemade paper chains strung around the space.
Playdough Cups
Play-Doh pot cutouts with the child’s age number in the centre are a fun idea. This is a great idea especially if they are an older toddler who is starting to understand language and learning to spell their name.
Playdough Party Food Ideas
Playdough Themed Cupcakes
What type of icing is ideal for a Play-Doh celebration? Obviously, fondant! It’s entertaining to work with and has a feel that reminds me of Play-Doh (anyone else hate eating the stuff?). Sugar Geek Show website has a fantastic rainbow fondant recipe, which would be perfect for playdoh cupcakes!
I followed the recipe, divided the fondant mixture into various bowls, and included food colouring to create fondant in various hues. After that, I worked the dough, smoothed it out flat, and used small cookie cutters to cut out shapes. I simply used a little knife to cut them out as I didn’t have a triangle cutter on hand.
Let Them Eat Fruit
Now may be your chance to get your child to eat all the colors of the rainbow. Put out fruit platters with bright colored fruits – the same color as the Playdough!
Fun Shaped Jello
My kids gobble up Jello Jigglers in a flash every time I make them! I often prepare them for parties (without the alcohol for the kiddies, ha!) because they are a fun and simple little treat for them.
Play-Doh Cookies
Get involved with these play-doh cookies from Cookie Connection
Playdough Party Favors
While the budget-friendly option is to go to your local dollar store and buy a bunch of play-doh themed things and chuck them into a party bag, the easier option is to support a small business and buy one of these awesome play-doh party favors available on Etsy. Good luck choosing one type however.
Playdough Birthday Party Table
Make sure each party guest gets their own play-doh themed spot at the table. If you can’t find playdough themed disposable crockery & cutlery, you can DIY yellow or red themed utensils with white name tags and the opposite color marker. To give you an idea – we used a red plastic cup (sorry environment, but these are really easy to find and super budget-friendly), with a yellow sticker and black marker for the child’s name. It was easy, cheap and worked really well with the birthday party theme.
Simple Playdough Cake Idea
Vanilla cupcakes are decorated with gorgeously vivid Play-Doh-like icing, then placed (with wrappers on) inside cleaned Play-Doh containers for serving. Alternately, fondant-ice a cake and adorn it with Play-Doh party-size pots and decorations! Or, give this recipe a go. So many fun ideas!
Playdough Party Planners
If it all becomes too much, or you’ve run out of time (as us working mums tend to do!) – there are a number of kids party planners and hosts around that would be happy to do the hard yards for you.
Happy Birthday to your little one!
Playdough Party Ideas: Why Trust My Toddler Life
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