One of our favourite children’s books of all times is The Gruffalo. In fact anything by Julia Donaldson. It is a magical story which is just so brilliant to read aloud. We had a very quiet weekend as everyone was tired after the first week of term and so I made the girls some homemade Gruffalo play dough to play with. I was surprised with how long they played with it and it really gave everyone a lot of pleasure.
First we mixed up a batch of chocolate play dough. Of course you could just use brown shop bought play dough but homemade is much more fun as you get to mix it first. This was a simple homemade play dough recipe which we added 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to. It made the house smell delicious. I had to keep reminding everyone not to taste the play dough.
Accessories For The Gruffalo Play dough
- a green pom pom
- googly eyes
- white and silver pipe cleaners
- purple craft foam cut into triangles
- cookie cutter letters
We had just read the book The Gruffalo’s Child and I left it on the table but other than that I didn’t give any advice as to how to make a Gruffalo.
The girls loved this activity and got stuck straight in. One of the twins wanted a bit more help but the other decided to make a Gruffalo cave instead of using the bits and pieces. Molly, who is 7, had a very clear idea of what she wanted to make.
Her finished Gruffalo is impossibly cute.
She even remembered to give him the purple prickles on his back.
This would be a great activity to go with the book, perhaps after you could label the parts of the Gruffalo.
When they had finished they used to play dough to make cars for their Princess dolls. Ok it didn’t have a lot to do with The Gruffalo but it was very creative!
