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Play dough is a staple amongst ECE educators. It's a great tool for imaginary play, exploration, and helps to build-up the fine motor skills needed for writing. It's also cheap to make. I often use this no cook recipe from The Imagination Tree. It's what I used in the picture below. I added yellow food coloring and green glitter
to make it "springy." 
The dollar store is a handy resource for cheap exploratory supplies. If you are like me, and don't go often, Amazon is fantastic too (not to mention it'll be delivered right to your doorstep). When I go to the dollar store, it takes me forever because I'm hunting for anything I can use for art and sensory activities. It's amazing what you can find, especially amongst the seasonal items. And the containers! So many cute ways to present invitations to play/explore as well as for storing said objects.
For this particular invite, I set out the homemade play dough, sparkly Mini Styrofoam Eggs
, silk flowers, and plastic butterflies
. The other play dough tools are all on a low shelf for easy access. 
This particular spring themed invitation allows a child to explore concepts of spring: plants/gardening, new life, insects (life cycle), and Easter (if one chooses). This activity allows for independent play and free exploration of materials.
You may be asking, "what is an invitation to play?" and that would be a great question. For an awesome tutorial, check out Creating the Invitation to Play on Teach Preschool and Creating Invitations to Play! on The Imagination Tree.
If you wish to expand this activity through reading, you might try:
because my 4 year old likes to play in water. I figured, amongst many other things, she could use them for water transfer and creating "potions" outside. I also know they are great for various art projects and color blending. While browsing Facebook I came across a beautiful 
can be, I didn't have any on hand. But I did have a bag full of dried markers I'd been collecting. You can repurpose these old markers by placing their tips in water and allowing them to soak for several hours, or overnight. Then you can store the created watercolors in small plastic containers. 
back in December on Amazon while searching art supplies for my 3 year old. They looked cool, but not what I wanted at the time. I added them to my wish list, hoping someone else would pick them up for her for Christmas. Lucky me, I was recently contacted by a representative that asked if I wanted to try them in exchange for a review if I liked them. Who am I to pass up trying new things?
. I imagine the average person would need a bit less, probably just Windex and some paper towels. 
by David Shannon. 
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