If you’re anything like my niece, you’re only allowed one color of Play-Doh at a time because you’re going to mix all of the colors together because it’s just too much fun. Play-Doh is a staple of your childhood but you’d probably never think of buying some for the workplace. That’s for kids. Right? Yes. It is, but it can also be used by adults under the right direction.
For children, Play-Doh is good for things such as fine motor skills and sensory development. For adults, it can help us with things like creative expression and collaboration. Play-Doh can definitely make employee engagement strategies a lot more fun!
Play-Doh at Work for a Collaborative Ice Breaker
The Garden
During this exercise, participants will work together to design their own garden. You can pair off or have small groups. Each group will be given a large sheet of paper and asked to think about everything that would exist in their garden. There can be flowers, bugs, garden gnomes, or anything they can think of! Participants then draw their garden on their piece of paper. Participants should color their garden at the same time, collaborating on what goes where.
For the next step, the groups will create their drawings using Play-Doh. Their flat design will transition into really cool 3D figures!
Expressing Creativity Through Play-Doh at Work
Monsters
For this exercise, our goal is to make a monster that reflects yourself. It can be a big monster, a wacky monster, or a little monster. Your monster types are limitless! If you want, gather some little accessories to accentuate the monsters. You can get googly eyes, wooden popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, or perhaps items that fit a particular theme you’d like the monsters to be celebrating. Once everyone is done with their monsters, they can sit them in front of themselves as a reminder to be playful during your meeting.
These are just two simple ways Play-Doh can be used in the workplace. Grab a pack and see where it takes you!
