Young children will have fun strengthening hand muscles while creating winter images with these super cute, free printable Winter Playdough Mats perfect for toddler, preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten age children to make snowman, ear muffs, winter hats, penguins, snowflakes, hot cocoa, mittens and more. Download pdf file with winter printables to learn winter vocabulary with students too!
Winter Playdough Mats
Looking for a fun, engaging winter activities for preschoolers? You will love these winter playdough mats which allow children to strengthen hand muscles, learn new vocabulary, gain confidence, and have fun as they celebrate winter! These free playdough mats are perfect for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners to create a variety of common winter items.
Whether you are a parent, teacher, or homeschooler – you will love these low prep winter printables to make learning fun.
Winter Printables
Start by scrolling to the bottom of the post, under the terms of use, and click on the text link that says >> Download <<. The pdf file will open in a new window for you to save the freebie and print the template.
Playing with Playdough
Have you ever wondered why preschool centers use playdough so much? Besides being a cheap play material that kids like, it is actually GOOD for preschoolers to play with playdough! Here are some reasons why:
- Playdough help skids build muscles – all the squishing, pounding, rolling, and shappling helps kids develop strong hand and arm muscles they will need for cutting and writing in school
- Playdough gives kids an Emotional outlet – when kids are frustrated, it allows them the chance to focus on other things and take out their frustration on the playdoh instead of their classmate or sibling
- Use Playdough to teach – as kids play with the dough give them new vocabulary for their actions and what they are creating; have children use their own words to describe what they are doing to help them learn to express themselves
- Playdough is great for kids imagination – play doh provides the means for kids to build and create whatever their little minds can create; it is especially fun to create with additional objects like cookie cutters, hot wheels, and other toys.
- Playdough is a multisensory experience – Having kids engage their senses is important for their development. Using sweet smelling koolaid playdough or our edible ice cream playdough adding texture to your dough with a floam recipe or adding in buttons, etc. allows for kids to explore with their senses.
- Playdough can increase children’s attention span – not sure, give kids playdough and time how long they play. Now time them again the next time – for some reason it seems to help kids improve their attention span.
- Playdough is great for social skills – Whether students are introverts, extroverts, social awkward, amazing artists, or not playdough has a way of helping kids play together and feel comfortable enough to talk to one another and engage with other peers.
Winter Activities for Preschoolers
There are a variety of methods for playing with pladough. You can use your favorite playdough recipe alone or add in:
- cookie cutters and rolling pins
- playdough factories
- other toys like hot wheels, buttons, etc
- plastic animals to make impressions
- free playdough mats (like the ones we have our on sites!)
Playdough mats give children ideas for what to create with playdough, an example, and a chance to follow a template. These winter playdough mats allow students to recreate common winter themes while building muscles and having fun.
Winter Printables
To use these dough mats simply scroll to the bottom of the post, under the terms of use, and click on the text download link. The pdf printable file will open, simply download and print the pages on cardstock in color. You may want to laminate to make these cards more durable for repeated use all winter. Next cut apart the cards with scissors.
Preschool Winter Activity
Use your favorite store bought or homemade playdoh recipe and roll it into a long snake. (The rolling motion is great for strengthening hand muscles) Then place the doh on top of the playdough cards to complete the pictures.
This is also great for color recognition, shape discrimination, and more!
Play Doh Cards
After kids have made their winter playdough shapes, have them use dry erase markers (if you laminated the cards) or crayons if not to trace the word for the winter object you just created. This is such a fun way to learn winter vocabulary, strengthen fine motor skills, and have fun with a winter themed activity at the same time.
Looking for more free printable playdough mats for kids? These are just a few of our favorites to try out: (hint: they are all FREE)
- Alphabet Playdough Mats – children will have fun forming letters out of playdough and finishing the picture with these playdough prompts from A to Z
- 4th of July Counting on the Grill Playdough Mats – count the meat on the grill as you play with these clever play doh mats
- Count to 10 Spider Playdough Mats – these playdough mats are super clever and you will LOVE the little spiders
- Shape Playdough Mats – practice forming shapes, tracing shape words, and see examples of shapes in everyday life with these clever shape worksheets
- Fun Number Playdough Mats – help kids form number 1-10 out of playdough and count to 10 as they finish the pictures
- Count to 20 Corn Playdough Mats – these are a fun and simple way to help kids practice counting to 20
- Emotions Playdough Mats – a great conversation starter for kids learning what emotions are
- Tools Playdough Mats – help kids learn vocabulary while have making their own playdough tools
- Ice Cream Task Cards -practice basic math adding scoops with these printable addition task cards
- Instrument Cards Playdough Mats – learn the names of many different musical instruments while making your own playdough versions
Winter Printables for Preschoolers
Looking for more fun, FREE winter printable to make learning fun in January? Try some of our favorites:
- Alphabet Snowman Coloring Pages
- Winter Worksheets for Preschool
- Snowman Counting Book
- Snowman Printable Shape Puzzles
- Winter Color by Number Worksheets
- Snowman Letter Practice Tracing
- Winter Mitten Alphabet Matching
- Snowman Worksheets
- Beginning Sounds Snowmen
- Winter Alphabet Tracing Cards
- Winter Rhymes –Matching Rhyming Words Games
- Or work on letter recognition with these Color by Letter Winter Worksheets
- Winter Roll and Cover worksheets with do a dot markers
- Fun-to-Read Winter Books for Kids
- Practice counting to 10 with this super cute Free Winter Printables
- Build a CVC Word Snowman Activities for early readers!
- Snowman Printables Letter Tracing
- Adorable Count to 10 Snowman Printables Book
- Winter Snowman Word Family Spinners freebie
- Printable Snowman Clock and telling time activities
- Fun Snowman Math Craft for kids to practice addition within 10
- Build a Snowman worksheet to help kindergartners work on sequencing
- Winter Playdough Mats for kids to build common winter items
- Practice phonemic awareness with these adorable Snowman Coloring Pages
- Snowman Printables for teaching children basic shapes
- How cute are these Snowman Printables to trace and erase
- Winter Snap Cube Free Printables
- Hands-on Winter Counting activity for preschoolers
- Free Winter Worksheets for pre-k
- Super cute, count to 10 Snowman Crafts Preschool
- Snow globe Letter Find Winter Worksheets
- Winter worksheets for Kindergartens
- DIY Snow Globe craft for kids
- Try this easy snowman craft that uses circle stickers
- This amazing Snow Dough recipe is only 2 ingredients, cold, and doesn’t melt!
- Adorable Glue Snowman Craft
- This How to Make Snow Ice Cream is a must this winter!
Download Winter Play Doh Cards
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