5 Colouring Pages Filled with Summer Fun!

We love colouring pages for a lot of reasons – it’s quick and easy to keep kids busy, mess-free, and helps to support fine motor skills and creativity – plus it’s fun for kids and adults alike, so grab some pencil crayons and join in!

P.S. Did you download our Spring 2021 colouring pages, Summer 2020 colouring pages and Fall 2020 colouring pages yet?

If your child had a great time with Dough Parlour’s colouring pages, then please tag us on Instagram or Facebook (@DoughParlour on both), we’d love to see them!

Download each one individually by clicking on the ones you like best, or download them all at once »

At The Dough Parlour, we're proud to be transparent about our product ingredients. We strongly believe this transparency is a big part of why our customers choose our products over others... besides the insanely delicious smelling dough and beautiful pastel colours! 

Here are three of our ingredients we're particularly proud of:

1. Food-Grade Scents: 100% of the ingredients we use are premium and bakery-grade, with the exception of some of our Seasonal scents which are scented with organic essential oils.

2. Natural Preservative: We use salt as an all natural preservative in our dough at the small cost of shorter shelf life. Tip: Store in the fridge after opening to extend the dough's life.  

3. BPA Free Packaging: The Dough Parlour’s packaging is entirely BPA-free to ensure that the modeling dough inside stays soft and safe.

Want to learn more about what's in our dough? Check out this blog post that goes into more detail about our ingredients » 

There are so many ways that play dough can be used to help children along their path of development. 

We connected with Gillian Holbrook, mom of three, preschool teacher, and the woman behind My Three Little Strawberries Blog and Instagram, to hear from an early years expert on how she’s using play dough to support her children and students physical and cognitive development.

Dough Parlour: Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Gillian Holbrook: Absolutely. I’m a mom of three girls – Isabella (4), Sophie (15), and Megan (16). I’ve worked as a preschool teacher for the past 20 years and early years education has always been my passion. I’ve been lucky to work in many different roles, including as a Montessori school teacher and the Early Years Officer for the UK Preschool Learning Alliance. Although, being a mom myself has probably taught me the most.

DP: What inspired you to start the @my_three_little_strawberries Instagram account and blog? And what’s your current vision or goal for it?

GH: I was inspired to start my Instagram account when I had Isabella and was at home much more often. I joined Instagram as I had a bit of spare time and then I began sharing some of the activities I was doing with the girls. I never imagined I would have even 100 followers, never mind almost 10,000!

I suppose having some followers gave me a bit of confidence to invest more time in building @my_three_little_strawberries. So I started sharing more and things naturally grew. I can’t imagine blogging about anything else – you really do have to have a genuine passion for these things.

I love getting messages from people when they’ve tried out an activity or a product I recommended and enjoyed it. I’m a bit like a child myself and truly love the activities and toys (maybe even more than the children sometimes!).

I don’t necessarily have a specific vision or long-term goal for the account – I just take it day by day really. I go with what the girls are interested in and what inspires me at the time. Maybe one day I would love to have my own toy shop selling all these wonderful products that excite me, but I don’t know if I’d want to let them go. I think truly my dream would be to win the lottery and open up the most magical, beautiful place for children to come and enjoy.

DP: You have a lot of great content on your Instagram profile and blog around sensory play. Can you share a few benefits of using play dough for sensory play?

GH: Where do I start? Play dough has so many benefits and I believe it’s so important for all children.

First, it’s fun! Children love to get messy, and to me, play dough is not too messy but just enough to provide that tactile sensory experience.

It’s so good for their development, from using those fine motor skills when they squash and squeeze it to developing muscles and tendons in their little hands for pencil and scissor control. You can even incorporate some math by rolling balls and counting them or cutting out shapes.

Play dough is also really great for concentration - children don’t even realize they’re doing it or how much they are learning, as it’s all done through play and fun.

I love using The Dough Parlour products because they add an extra sensory element to the experience with their amazing scents. I’ve tried a lot of play dough and Dough Parlour’s has got it just perfect. It's not too strong of a smell and it’s also the perfect texture so you can always cut out the best shapes.

DP: What are some examples of activities you’ve done with your children or students with play dough?

GH: Really, the best way to use play dough is to just let the children enjoy it, experiment with it, and use their imaginations. Giving them some tools and cutters is great for gross motor skills or you can even add in some nature by collecting shells, pebbles, or flowers to help them learn about the world around them.

We love to chop up the dough with a knife to develop hand and eye coordination or roll it out into letters to help with spelling and learning new words.

You can also turn it into a science activity by talking about how the play dough is made and why it changes consistency from a liquid to a soft dough.

Another type of activity that works quite well is using play dough to learn about other cultures and traditions. So for example, around Saint Patrick’s Day, you could use green dough to make shamrocks or rainbows, and talk to your children about Irish food and traditions.

I could go on and on about the benefits, but over the past year, when children’s environments and daily routines have been more uncertain because of the pandemic, I think one of its best uses has to be as a mindful activity to let children just relax, unwind, and create. They can squeeze it if they are feeling frustrated with the world or they can turn it into something magical like a rainbow or a unicorn.

DP: What suggestions do you have for teachers or parents looking to incorporate play dough into their playtime with young children?

GH: Most importantly – do it at their pace. Maybe have it available on a low shelf so they can access it when they’re in the mood or feeling creative.

It’s also a super activity to do when they get tired. Playing with the dough really is relaxing and I’ve found it really helps with calming my children down.

And lastly, and I know this is a hard one, but let them mix it up and watch how the colour changes, or try adding some rice to give it a new sensation. Bio Glitter is one of my favourite things to add for the visual experience. So don’t worry too much about things looking ‘perfect’, just let them create!

Featured image by My Three Little Strawberries 

With our super squishy texture and mouth-watering scents, it’s only natural to be curious about what’s really in our modeling dough. Great news - we’re sharing some secrets today! Here are the ingredients that make all of The Dough Parlour’s products 100% non-toxic and 100% vegan. 

Wheat Flour: The elasticity of our modeling dough comes from the gluten in the wheat flour that we use. We know satisfaction is measured on a squishy scale, so we kept that in mind when choosing the flour for our formula. Wheat flour plays an important role in giving our dough its beloved bouncy texture, and the deeper colour of the flour also helps make our pastel magic happen.

Sea Salt: As a natural antibacterial preservative, salt gives our modeling dough texture, and keeps it fresh enough to store on the shelf (tip: storing in the fridge will help extend the life of your dough once opened). Working with the other ingredients in our formula, sea salt adds extra body to our modeling dough.

Vegetable Oil: Just like baby oil keeps skin smooth, vegetable oil is the natural lubricant that we use to keep our modeling dough soft. It moistens all the ingredients and combines them into one happy mixture with a non-sticky texture that we know and love at The Dough Parlour.

Natural Food Extracts: With sensory play at the forefront of our philosophy, we focus on making The Dough Parlour's scented rainbow cheerful yet child-proof.

To achieve the wide range of scents for our modeling dough, we use only natural food extracts for fragrance to keep our ingredients 100% natural.

Premium Bakery-Grade Colouring: Our modeling dough gets its perfect pastel with the help of our wheat flour, but the star player is the premium bakery-grade colouring we use. 

And there you have it - The Dough Parlour’s all-vegan, and all-fun ingredient list! With our hand-picked ingredients for our hand-crafted modeling dough, your child is guaranteed to have a fun filled sensory experience every time, and you know exactly what's in their hands.

More and more parents are finding themselves educating their young ones at home these days. Whether it’s a personal decision to homeschool or mandated virtual learning, for many, the classroom has moved from the school to home almost overnight. 

We caught up with Tanya, mom of two, homeschooler extraordinaire, and the woman behind @you.are.my.sonshine (Instagram) to see what advice she has for other parents who are dusting off their teaching hat to educate their children from home.

Here’s what Tanya had to say about using play dough in the at-home classroom.

• Bring the lesson to life

When Tanya started to homeschool her boys last March, she quickly found that the best way to keep her boys excited to learn in a new environment was to structure their lessons around a unique theme for each week. The boys chose the theme, and she would have all of the worksheets, activities, and lessons revolve around the theme of the week and then would use dough from The Dough Parlour to bring the lessons to life. When the boys were learning about the ocean, Tanya set up play dough invitations which helped them to freely create creative sea creatures like flounders, stingrays, and comb jellies out of play dough. When the boys were learning about anatomy, they used the dough to create organs in the body, making shapes for the lungs, heart, and stomach. Tanya suggests using play dough, or other creative materials like paint, to move the lesson from a paper worksheet to something they can touch and feel; it not only encourages creativity, but is also a way for everyone to enjoy a calming sensory activity together.

• Don’t stop at art class
Using dough doesn’t have to be reserved for art class or break time. There are so many ways to incorporate dough into different school subjects to keep your children engaged and focused while learning at home. Tanya shared with us that they will often use play dough balls for counting and easy addition and subtraction, and they also use dough to spell out new words they’re learning that week.

• Preparation is key
Like anything in life, homeschooling tends to go smoother with a little bit of prep work. Tanya suggests looking on Pinterest beforehand to get inspiration for creative activities and then modifying them to be more age appropriate if necessary. Pinterest is filled with clever ideas for painting projects, play dough creations, and ways to make learning more fun for your kids. Tanya also shared that physically preparing the learning space has made all the difference in setting their school week up for success. She has an ‘art cart’ for each of her boys, right near their desk, equipped with sketchbooks, paint supplies, play dough, drawing materials, and loose parts. This way when inspiration strikes, the materials to create are never too far away.

• Take their lead
Kids have bright young minds, with tons of ideas of their own. Instead of mapping out every moment of the day, sometimes it’s a good idea to be flexible and follow your child’s lead. Tanya told us about the week the boys were learning about nature. They had done a lot of hikes and learned about different types of trees and birds, and the boys became quite fascinated by bird nests. Tanya worked off their ideas, tapping into the momentum of what was interesting to them, and followed her son’s suggestion to create bird nests of their own out of dough. They picked grass and sticks to add to the nests and even made little dough bird eggs to make it complete.

• Create with them
Roll up your sleeves and create alongside your kids. Tanya suggests that it’s best if you’re truly part of the process; sitting with them, teaching them, and helping to expand their vocabulary. Get them talking about what they're creating and introduce them to new words related to their creation. She mentioned that Dough Parlour is great for this as the colours are bright and beautiful and the dough scents are so good it’s hard not to take a bite! When young ones see their parents having just as much fun, the enjoyment is reciprocated and they're also more likely to stay engaged in the activity for a longer period of time. If you’re looking for permission to have a little fun and play – consider this it!

For dough sets for your at-home classroom, shop our latest collections »

5 Colouring Pages Filled with Spring Fun!

Spring showers bring May flowers... but rainy days can be tricky to fill so we designed some FREE Spring-inspired colouring pages to enjoy and to help! All of our graphics are designed in-house by our talented designer, Farhana.

We love colouring pages for a lot of reasons – it’s quick and easy to keep kids busy, mess-free, and helps to support fine motor skills and creativity – plus it’s fun for kids and adults alike, so grab some pencil crayons and join in!

P.S. Did you download our Summer colouring pages and Fall colouring pages yet?

If your child had a great time with Dough Parlour’s colouring pages, then please tag us on Instagram or Facebook (@DoughParlour on both), we’d love to see them!

Download each one individually by clicking on the ones you like best, or download them all at once »

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, it’s the season of love and compassion! What better way to express that love and appreciation for your family and loved ones than with some fresh baked cookies!

Baking can be a great way to bring the family together, especially if you get the kids involved! They’ll love watching and helping you mix the dough, and decorate the cookies when they’re done. Showing them that expressing themselves through doing something homemade and special for someone you care about is always a great lesson. While the cookies are baking and cooling, grab a tub of dough and let them pretend to bake more cookies to keep them occupied while they wait for their sweet treats to be ready!

These heart shaped cookies are very cute and help stir positive emotions with both the baker, and the cookie receiver! Use our classic cookie Dough Parlour Sugar Cookie Recipe and decorate the cookies in whatever colour icing you like, adding sprinkles for some extra sparkle!

What shapes will you bake with your family this Valentine’s Day?

The Dough Parlour’s Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookie Recipe
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened (or use salted butter and only 1/2 tsp added salt)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt (or 1/2 tsp if using salted butter)

1. Combine butter and sugar in the bowl and beat until creamy.
2. Add egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Slowly add dry ingredients into wet until well combined.
5. Divide dough into two disks, cover well with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.
TIP: To make cutting easier, pre-roll your dough before putting it into the fridge, just make sure you cover it well so it doesn’t dry out, and use parchment or a silicone baking mat to keep the two layers separate.
6. Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
7. Dust a clean surface with flour and roll out one cookie dough to about 1/4″ thick. Add flour as needed.
8. Use our cutters to cut out shapes and transfer shapes to the baking sheet.
9. Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until edges begin to golden.
10. Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet before frosting with your favourite frosting recipe!

Activities for Calmer, Happier Children – Keep Calm and Parent On!

Let’s face it, the stress of today’s changing world not only has us adults dealing with heightened anxiety, but also our children. It’s true, children across the world have been real super stars in dealing with these uncertain, scary times that the COVID pandemic has brought, but it still has had its effect. It has been a monster-full of change for them to bear; changes in their parent’s schedules, and even the limited interaction with family and friends. While the beauty of children is that they always find a reason to smile, the uncertainties and inconsistency in relation to what they expect can cause them mild anxiety.

Being parents ourselves at The Dough Parlour, we worry about our children’s mental health too. Included in those worries is the need to restrict screen time, since it also contributes to aggravating their anxiety.

If you’re anything like us, then you must be exhausted thinking of new ways to keep your children busy! So, we decided to save others the extra work of brainstorming and made a list!

Inspired by Play Therapy we’ve put together some activities that help calm and reduce anxiety in children. Play is a powerful means for children to express their emotions and let us know how they are truly feeling despite not quite knowing how to express themselves in words.

Create a Space

Consider clearing an area in your home, which allows a cluttered free “work space” for children to find a place of calm and consistency, as well as enjoy their play time.

Here are some calming activities, as well as Natalie’s picks showcasing some awesome products that will keep children happy and healthy (yes… and busy!).

• Colouring and Drawing
• Playing with dough
• Puzzles
• Wooden Blocks
• Stuffed Animals
• Finger Painting
• Board/Card Games – Candy Land, Go Fish, etc.

Natalie’s Calming Corner Picks

Dough Parlour’s Founder and Childhood Educator shares some of her favourite products to include in your pre-schoolers ‘calming corner’.

Jelly Cat – For a beautiful friend to play with, cuddle and hold tight – day and night (that wasn’t meant to rhyme, but a mom is a mom!)

Rock Blocks – A different, almost natural way to build. This toy offers building play without traditional blocks but rather play “rocks” that come in calming, relaxing colours.

Janod Puzzles – Dazzling cardboard puzzles, that come with a poster you can use to decorate your space. It’s also packaged in a cute carrying case. It’s easy to tuck away and bring out whenever your children are ready for some quiet play time.

Noodle & Boo – Bath time has its reputation to calm anyone down! These products make bath time a wholesome, soothing experience.

As the expression goes, “it takes a tribe to raise a child” and we’re certain that our creative Dough Parlour followers have tons of great ideas on what they do to help calm their children.

Share with us what you do to help alleviate anxiety in your children/child – tag us @DoughParlour. You never know who can benefit from your experience, including us!