Canada Day Activity: The Great Canadian Play Dough Set

With Canada Day just around the corner, my little lady and I decided that it was time to put together a Canada-themed play dough set. We always keep a few ready-made play dough sets on hand for prep-free play opportunities and this set based on the Canadian wilderness has been thoroughly enjoyed already!

In order to put it together, we first made four batches of fresh play dough—one in black for mountains, one in brown for soil, one in green for grass and crops and one in blue for lakes and rivers. We did a half batch of our very favourite no-cook play dough recipe for each colour, but you can use any play dough recipe you love or use store-bought dough.

With our play dough ready, we collected several loose parts to add to our play dough set. We found some small evergreen branches, pinecones and rocks outside. Indoors, we gathered up some glass gems and made a quick Canadian flag by attaching a flag printout to a coloured bamboo skewer with glue. 

After retrieving several animal figurines (we used a gopher, a bear, a raccoon, a fox, a duck, a wolf and a squirrel), it was time to play!

Since it was a gorgeous day out, we actually brought our play dough set outside and set up on a picnic blanket under the shade of a big, old tree and then got creating on our wooden tray. I must admit, the whole scene felt very Canadian!

When it comes to creating with play dough, anything goes. Under the direction of my little one, we created several different layouts for our Canadian wilderness, each with its own accompanying pretend play and animal dialogue.

When we were done, we simply placed everything into a big divided container for storage. I`m sure we’ll be bringing out again very soon.