Why Play-Doh Touch Is Going to Be the Hottest Gift of the Holiday Season

Published on Nov 4, 2016 at 1:52 PM

Play-Doh has been a family favorite since 1956. Though it began with simple cans of the colored dough, the brand has expanded over the years with accessories, playsets, and now, Play-Doh Touch ($40). Like other toy brands, Hasbro, the makers of Play-Doh, has made a move to include a technology aspect to its products, which in this case results in something truly magical.

Using the Shape to Life Studio playset, your child can scan their Play-Doh creations and watch them come to life in the virtual world, which your child can then play around in on their tablet. Sounds simple, and it is, but the endless open-ended and creative play it can bring right into your living room is just one of the reasons we think it should be given to every kid this year for the holidays.

Read through for five reasons we think this is going to be the hottest gift of the season.

Your child can create whatever their heart desires.

The rules of Play-Doh still apply — your child can create whatever they want in whatever colors they like. Once they've shaped their creations, they can scan them into the virtual world in the iPad app and watch it completely come to life. It's honestly the coolest thing — the app even knows the difference between scanning in creatures who will be able to move and walk around and decorative aspects like trees.

The gameplay has endless possibilities and doesn't have to stop when the Play-Doh gets put away.

Like the actual modeling of the dough itself, there are endless possibilities within the app play. Your child will start with a mostly blank world and can add in however many designs they want to make it their own unique creation. Once the Play-Doh has to be put away, the app play continues. Even though nothing new can get scanned in, everything your child has created up until that point can be played with on their iPad.

It's easy to use, even for toddlers.

The recommended age for the app is 4 and up, but as every parent knows, even children younger than that are proficient in technology, and as long as they're beyond the everything-is-food stage, they should be good to go with the Play-Doh itself. Toddlers and big kids can all use this product and each get something useful out of flexing their creative and imaginative muscles.

Kids of all ages will love the technology element.

It may seem hard to sell a can of Play-Doh as an awesome gift to most kids — though it is a great stocking stuffer idea — but combined with the elements of the Touch system, it becomes a completely amazing present that allows you to give them screen time without having to worry about them zoning out over something useless. The time spent on their tablet will be quality screen time, but they don't necessarily have to know that, do they? To them, it'll just be hours of fun.

It's something the entire family can do together.

Although I'm one of the first people to admit that "Can we play with Play-Doh?" was one of the most dreaded sentences of my nanny days, I had an absolute blast playing with Play-Doh Touch, and not one kid was even in the room. Parents and children alike are going to want to get their hands on some dough to create creatures and decorations for the virtual world sitting in the app — it's just too much fun not to play with together.