If your kids love playing with playdough as much as mine then they'll love these new Christmas playdough mats I've created. If you're looking for a fun and easy way to occupy the kids either in the classroom or at home over the holidays, download my free playdough mats below and have fun getting creative with playdough, Christmas loose parts or washable markers.
Playdough is our favourite sensory base of all because in addition to providing sensory stimulation, it's also a great way to work fine motor skills. As children roll, squish, stretch, pull or push the playdough they're building strength and dexterity in finger muscles to prepare for writing.
Depending what playdoh you use and if you make your own playdough with added scents, glitter, colouring etc - playdough can provide a mixture of visual, tactile and olfactory sensory input. So not only will it feel satisfying to touch and squeeze, it can also look super inviting and smell amazing.
HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY WITH YOUR FREE CHRISTMAS PLAYDOUGH MATS
- Download the free template {below}
- Print and laminate for durability
- Use with playdough, loose parts or washable markers
The free set includes 4 different designs in a PDF document in A4 size, which can be downloaded and printed as is to fit to a page in Australia. If you're printing using US letter size you may need to check the fit to page box. As soon as I printed out our Christmas playdough mats I laminated them so they can be used over and over without getting damaged.
If you don't have a laminator you can usually get things laminated at stationary stores for only a few dollars. Alternatively if you want to laminate lots of documents, you can pick up home laminators relatively cheap at Amazon, stationary stores or department stores.
We used our playdough mats with a few different colours of playdough and some Christmas themed loose parts. You can use any loose parts you have on hand, they're great with sparkly pom poms, pipe cleaners, coloured beads, little Christmas bells and Christmas shaped sequins.
Always supervise children when using loose parts as they can pose a choking risk, especially to children who are still mouthing.
FREE CHRISTMAS PLAYDOUGH MATS
Please note these printable play mats are for personal or classroom use only, they cannot be reproduced, published or sold in any form on any platform.
Each playdough mat comes with a decoration prompt as an idea for how the kids can use the mat, including: decorate the gingerbread man, design a Christmas sweater, decorate the Christmas tree and add some cookies and carrots to the plate. You can print off as many copies of each design as you need.
The designs are deliberately simple to provide a blank canvas so that children can be as creative as they like. They might want to use playdough or loose parts to follow the prompt, or a mix of both. Alternatively younger kids might just decorate the whole mat instead of doing as the prompts recommend, and that's totally ok!
The beauty of these play mats is every single time children play with them their creations will be different and each child will interpret the prompts differently. Regardless of their final design, they'll be busily developing their fine motor skills while also honing their creativity and imagination.
SHOP MY FULL SET OF CHRISTMAS PLAYDOUGH MATS
If your kids love these free Christmas playdough mats then they'll love my complete set of Christmas playdough mats with 16 different designs available for just $3.50 {AU} in my Etsy store. My girls loved the playdough mats I made above so much that I kept creating and came up with lots of other Christmas playdough mats. The full set comes with 16 different mat designs with a mixture relevant to northern and southern hemispheres including:
- Gingerbread man - Decorate the gingerbread man
- Gingerbread house - Decorate the gingerbread house
- Christmas tree - Decorate the Christmas tree
- Christmas tree - Add some presents under the tree
- Santa's sleigh - Fill Santa's sleigh with gifts
- Santa sack - What's in Santa's sack?
- House - Decorate the house with Christmas lights
- Blank Christmas lights - Give the Christmas lights some colour
- Wreath - Decorate the Christmas wreath
- Plate - Add some cookies and carrots to the plate
- Christmas cookies - Decorate the Christmas cookies
- Sweater - Design a Christmas sweater
- Fireplace - Add some stockings to the fireplace
- Snow globe - What's in the snow globe?
- Baubles - Decorate the Christmas baubles
- Merry Christmas - Fill in the words with playdough
The playdough mats can also be used to help develop language and reasoning skills by asking kids questions as they're playing e.g. Why did you decorate the tree with those decorations? Is the gingerbread man happy/sad? You can also use them to add in some maths questions e.g. How many presents did you put under the tree? The Merry Christmas sign can also be used to practice letter formation with either playdough or washable markers.
Disclosure - This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience, which means I may earn a small commission at no cost to you, should you make a purchase.
