FREE Winter Playdough Cards

Young children will have fun strengthening hand muscles while creating winter images with these FREE Printable Winter Playdough Cards perfect for toddler, preschool, and kindergarten age children.

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.

Playdough Mats

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 tempalte. These winter playdough mats allow students to recreate common winter themes whiel building muscles and having fun.

Dough Mat

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.

Playdough Activity Mats

Use your favoriet 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:

Download Winter Play Doh Cards

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