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This super-easy playdough recipe is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon inside. It's quick enough to hold a young child's attention and you only need a few storecupboard ingredients.

Little hands can play with the results straightaway, so there's immediate gratification for all involved!

For more hands-on crafts, see how to make slime, salt dough, oobleck and moon sand with affordable ingredients and easy steps.

Keep the little ones entertained at home with our summer activities for kids, sensory play ideas, fun yoga for kids and birthday ideas for kids at home.

See our new Kid's Kitchen series for essential cookery skills, plus easy recipes kids can make and kids summer baking projects.
Browse our family & kids hub for plenty of inspiration.
How to make playdough

Makes 1 coloured ball
Prep 10 minutes
You will need

8 tbsp plain flour

2 tbsp table salt

60ml warm water

food colouring

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method
1. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the water, a few drops of food colouring and the oil.

2. Pour the coloured water into the flour mix and bring together with a spoon.

3. Dust a work surface with a little flour and turn out the dough. Knead together for a few minutes to form a smooth, pliable dough. If you want a more intense colour you can work in a few extra drops of food colouring.

4. Store in a plastic sandwich bag (squeeze out the air) in the fridge to keep it fresh. You can make a batch of colours and give away as kids' party bag favours or hold a playdough party for your child's next birthday.
Watch our step-by-step video to see how simple this recipe is:
For inspiration, visit our friends at 5 Minute Fun and discover 5 easy models to make from playdough.

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This super-easy playdough recipe is the perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon inside. It's quick enough to hold a young child's attention and you only need a few storecupboard ingredients. Little hands can play with the results straightaway, so there's immediate gratification for all involved!

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Online interactive games

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Practice writing your numbers

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This engaging show presents core math ideas in a playful way for children ages 3-6. There are 80 episodes in total.

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numberblocks "numberblocks full episodes" "numberblocks episodes" cbeebies "learn to count" "learn maths" "maths for kids" "learning cartoons for kids" "cart...

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We are the Numberblocks! Little blocks with big ideas, having a ton of number fun. Learn how to add, subtract and count the fun and educational way! For more, download the official Numberblocks apps; https://www.learningblocks.tv/numberblocks/apps Visit the Numberblocks on; Twitter: @numberblocks Facebook: facebook.com/numberblocks/ Instagram: @numberblocks

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Lots of fun interactive games as Gaeilge!

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Lots of fun interactive games as Gaeilge!

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Dress for the Season

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Emotional Development | Sesame Street | PBS LearningMedia

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Do you know how to get to Sesame Street? This collection is designed to engage preschoolers in everyday learning by teaching core skills in Math, Literacy, STEM, and Social and Emotional Development. Here you’ll find hundreds of videos, games, and printable materials to help you to excite even the y…

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Your Headspace Mindfulness & Meditation Experts

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Animations of some of the best-known traditional nursery rhymes, many sung by BBC Children's TV presenters, with music that your children will love! They're an ideal resource to support a range of Early Years objectives, whether used in a nursery, reception class, or at home.

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Animations of some of the best-known traditional nursery rhymes, many sung by Cbeebies TV presenters, with music that your children will love! They're an ideal resource to support a range of Early Years objectives, whether used in a nursery, reception class, or at home.

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Tricky Words - also called irregular, high-frequency words - are hard-to-read words which often occur in early children's books. Try sounding out these words with the standard basic sounds and you won't get: 'the' and 'was' and 'are'. If you want to further understand the science behind them, you can read more about their explicit, systematic teaching.

At home, my daughter and I use Phonics Hero's tricky words games (parents can grab a free 7-day trial) but we've also invented lots of multi-sensory tricky word activities to practice them. In this blog post, I am going to share my top tips and favourite tricky words activities for teaching children to read these irregular words at home.

Tip 1: Make sure the adult knows them first!

If you've signed up for a 7-day trial and are in Australia or Hong Kong use this list; for the rest of the world, use this one. You need to do a mini assessment: show the sheet to your child and have them read the tricky words, stop when you have a 'bank' of 3-6 unknown tricky words.

My daughter didn't know five, so I wrote them out on cards and we use them to play games and reinforce through the day.

Tip 2: Pepper Tricky Words Activities Throughout the Day

There isn't a silver bullet to learning these words but exposure and repetition is key. You need to pepper them through your day - it helps your child instantly identify them. Some ideas:

Find them in books

As you read stories, point out the tricky words then progress to pausing and having your child read them.

Look for them in junk mail or magazines

Decorate your house with them

A teacher friend of mine sticks them all around the house so she can quiz her little boy throughout the day.

Tricky (Pass)words

My daughter's love of passwords and, in particular, the password to my iPhone (cue her unlocking it to send random texts to people!) inspired one of her new favourite tricky words activities.

Here's how it works: Instead of numbers, we wrote tricky words into our passcode template and stuck it to the inside of the living room door. In order to open the door, she has to 'key in' our passcode, or series of tricky words. Three days later, she still loves it (and scolds me for opening the door without putting in the passcode!) and has learned the tricky words 'all' and 'her'.

Here's a printable Tricky Word Passcode sheet for you to insert the target words into and fill up with known words for extra practice.

Supersoaker Phonics

Bath-time is great for a no-mess reading activity!

Before running the bath, write tricky words or phonemes on the tiles with a whiteboard marker and grab a water blaster (or large syringe from any pharmacy). Little ones say each word or sound aloud as they 'shoot' their target!

Play Phonics Hero

Practice tricky word reading and spelling with Phonics Hero. Each level will teach between 3-6 words and there are more than 130 games over 12 levels to practice with. The reading and spelling tricky words games are indicated by these icons:

Tip 3: Use Everyday Games With an Added Tricky Word Element

We've started using tricky words in games such as Noughts and Crosses (AKA Tic-Tac-Toe) or Hangman.

You can also double the sets of tricky words and play 'Pairs' or 'Snap'.

Tip 4: Make Your Tricky Word Activities Multi-sensory!

Make some noise!

We broke out the pots and pans and my daughter started composing with the tricky words. If your ears can bear it, here's a video:

Get your hands dirty (as you wash up)!

As you cook, clean or garden, you might use the bubbles, mud or flour to trace, land on or erase the words.

Tip 5: Play Teacher and Student

Kids love pointing out when the grown-ups have got it wrong and it's a great test to see if they've learned the tricky words. As my teacher friend shows here, she and her son take turns reading the words and he awards them each a point for the correct answer (of course, mummy gets it wrong all the time - so your child gets double the practice).

Do you have a great tip or trick for teaching tricky words that you don't see here? Share it in the comments!

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Tricky Words Activities for Home | Phonics Hero

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Fun, simple tricky words activities you can sprinkle throughout your child's day and help them master those tricky words at home!

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