Summer time can feel really long, whether you have toddlers who need constant entertainment, or school kids who are on holidays and constantly bored. To help you entertain your kids over the summer break I've made a set of free printable summer playdough mats that you can download and print off to use at home.
These playdough mats are great for younger children from toddlers right through to school children who need some extra brain stimulation {and time away from screens}. They're also great to use as an activity during playdates or at summer camps.
Playdough is such a fun multi-sensory medium for kids {and adults}. It provides visual and tactile sensory input and helps children develop necessary fine motor skills. Squishing, squashing, pinching, rolling, poking, pulling, cutting and tearing playdough helps kids build hand strength and use their pincer grip. Plus it's loads and loads of fun!
HOW TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY WITH YOUR FREE PRINTABLE SUMMER 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 Summer 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 at Amazon, stationary stores or department stores. Or you can use the paper sheets inside of dry erase pockets.
You can use your playdough mats with homemade playdough, store bought playdoh jars, loose parts, washable markers, or a combination of each of these. So far the girls have used ours with playdoh, however they would work well with loose parts such as yellow pipe cleaners {for the sun rays}, small shells {to add to the sandcastle} and black beans {for the watermelon seeds}.
*Always supervise children when using loose parts as they can pose a choking risk, especially to children who are still mouthing.
FREE SUMMER PLAYDOUGH MAT PDFS
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. If you would like to share these playdough mats please link back to this post directly.
Each playdough mat comes with a decoration prompt as an idea for how the kids can use the mat, including: decorate the sandcastle, decorate the beach ball, make the sun shine and add some seeds to the watermelon. 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 summer 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.
GET MY FULL SET OF PRINTABLE SUMMER PLAYDOUGH MATS
If your kids love these free Summer playdough mats then they'll love my complete set of Summer playdough mats with 14 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 made lots of other Summer themed playdough mats. The full set comes with 14 different mat designs with a mixture of beach and summer food mats including:
- Beach. What can you see at the beach today?
- Sandcastle. Decorate the sandcastle.
- Beach ball. Decorate the beach ball.
- Palm trees. Add some leaves to the palm trees.
- Seashells. Decorate the seashells.
- Starfish. Decorate the starfish.
- Sun. Make the sun shine.
- Watermelon. Add some seeds to the watermelon.
- Pineapple. Add a stalk to the pineapple.
- Strawberries. Add some seeds to the strawberries.
- Ice cream. Add some ice cream to the cones and popsicle stick.
- Grill. What's cooking on the grill?
- Pool. What's in the pool?
- Summer Time. Fill in the words with playdough.
The playdough mats can also be used to further develop language and reasoning skills by asking children questions while they're playing e.g. Why did you choose those flavours of ice cream? Do you think any animals live inside the seashells? Do you think the water in the pool would be warm or cold?
You can also use them to add in some maths questions e.g. How many seeds did you put on the strawberries? How many starfish are there? The Summer Time sheet is also a fun way to practice letter formation with either playdough or washable markers.
MORE PLAYDOUGH MATS
Disclosure - This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience, which means I may make a small commission at no cost to you, should you make a purchase.
