The Clay Center with Play-Doh comes with LOTS of items that include: rolling pins, scissors, molds, stampers, extruders, body part pieces, sculpting tools and 4 cans of Play-Doh in its own tool kit.

So how does the Clay Center with Play-Doh help with Back to School? Easy, use it to help your child review their skills before they return in the Fall:

- Any smooshing, squeezing, pinching and pulling will help rev those hand muscles back into shape for better endurance during pencil/paper tasks

- For preschoolers, use the body part pieces to review body part awareness by making a person. Encourage them to draw a person after they have made their own Play-Doh person to reinforce the positioning of head, body, feet, arms, etc.

- Roll out the putty into long “snakes,” using the scissors with a “thumbs up” position, cut the snakes up into several pieces to get those hands ready for scissor cutting control!

- If you have older children who know their letters, encourage them to make different letters with the Play-Doh, have an alphabet strip nearby from them to look at to help their memory, or push the playdoh onto a letter tracing card.

- Use the purple sculpting tools and hold them in a tripod fashion (using thumb, index and middle finger) with a good grasp and draw letters or words into the Play-Doh.

I would also recommend adding some Ziploc bags to this kit to help keep some of the smaller pieces sorted. If this kit ever got dumped over, the pieces would be everywhere!

Make sure to check out the Constructive Playthings website for other back to school and learning toys.

The GIVEAWAY this month is a Clay Center with Play Doh for one lucky person!

Mandatory Entry-

1. For a mandatory entry go to www.toyqueen.com and click through the blue Constructive Mom button on the right hand side to enter the Constructive Playthings website.  Leave a comment under this post about another great back to school toy that you saw on the Constructive Playthings website. Remember, anytime you click through to the website using this button, you will get 15% off your entire purchase!

Extra Credit Entries- Make sure to leave a comment under this post if you complete any of the following.

1. Follow @ConstructiveMom and @Toyqueen on Twitter

2. Like Constructive Playthings on Facebook and ToyQueen on Facebook

This Giveaway will end on Wednesday August 18th at 11:59 p.m. EST

I received products from Constructive Playthings in return for review. All opinions are my own.

Crayon Buddies

At what age should my child color?  Beginning at one year of age, if you give your child a crayon, they may begin to hold the crayon, place it on the paper and imitate you moving your hand back and forth to produce a scribble.  Expect attention for this activity at this age, to last literally seconds.  As they get older, their ability to scribble more will evolve to produce more specific crayon strokes that are the prerequisites to handwriting.

Many times parents tell me they become frustrated that their children have a hard time coloring for any length of time. Here are some ideas to assist your child with learning to focus on the love of coloring using the Crayola Beginnings Products!

1. First,  you will need to teach your child the concept of coloring and what to do with the crayon or marker, especially since it will probably go right into their mouth.  If you have not transitioned away from using a pacifier, for those kid’s that are very oral, if you give them the pacifier before the crayon it may not go into the mouth and could help their attention!

Crayola First Marks

Otherwise, if they attempt to place it in their mouth, distract them by redirecting their hand to the paper to color using hand over hand assistance.

2.  Place your child in a booster seat or a high chair when coloring and set up a routine.  They won’t be tempted to color the wall if they are not given free reign to roam the home! Sit with them and offer

Crayola Tub Crayons

two choices of crayons or markers, one for each hand, and don’t give them the whole stash! If they color the tray by accident you should be able to wipe it clean easily with these washable products. If they are in a booster seat at the table, use a plastic placemat under the paper to protect the table.  Even better, Crayola has created tub crayons, if you are worried about the mess, practice in the tub!

3.  Generally speaking, one and two year olds are capable of scribbling randomly. At two years of age, some children are imitating simple strokes such as repeatedly making dots, a vertical line and horizontal line after you demonstrate them.

Crayola Easy Stampers

4.  Crayola’s products are excellent at this age, as shorter, fatter tools prove to be the best for grasp development, allowing for more control.  Even better, the Crayola Beginnings products have a nice rounded bottom to assist with developing a fingertip grasp pattern for better control.