Easter Playdough Mats Free Printable
Grab these Easter playdough mats to give your preschoolers a good dose of fine motor and literacy practice while they play. Afterwards, check out the rest of our Easter activities for toddlers and preschoolers for even more ideas.
These Easter egg play dough mats can be used in any number of ways, depending on what you want to work on with the kids.
Giving your students options for using the mats allows the kids to be creative, and it lets you get more mileage out of one printable. Ask the children if they can come up with more ideas to use these Easter play dough mats, and see what they brainstorm!
Related: Dinosaur Play Dough Mats
Easter Playdough Mats
Your kids are going to love these play dough mats! They are all sorts of Easter fun in a simple printable. Your students will be inspired to explore the shapes and words on the mats, using different materials and approaches. This is the very best way to use printables – in creative, hands-on activities that the kids enjoy.
Download your free play dough mats at the end of this post. But first, let’s take a look at them and see some ideas for using them.
Related: Easter Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment
Materials for the Easter Play Dough Fun
All you really need for these Easter playdough mats are the mats, a dry erase pouch or lamination, and play dough. Check out this playdough recipe if you want to whip up a batch or 2 of homemade play dough. Store bought play dough is fine, too.
Related: Counting Eggs Printable Book
You can add more variety to this activity if you have some little surprise items at the ready. I always like to suggest themed manipulatives with play dough mats. Children can use them with, or in place of, the play dough to explore the mats, and they’ll come up with all sorts of ideas.
Here are some ideas to use with your Easter playdough mats. You might already have some items floating around your home or classroom that would work just as well!
- Play dough
- Dry erase pockets
- Laminator and laminating pouches (if this is your preference over the dry erase pockets)
- Printer
- Dry erase markers
- Small Easter manipulatives or candy
Prep and Play with Easter Play Dough Mats
Getting the mats ready for your students is super simple. You can have them ready to go in no time. And your students can certainly help put them into the dry erase pockets if you want to get them involved in the prep work.
Related: Forest Animal Play Dough Small World
Here’s what to do:
- Scroll to the bottom of this post for your copy of the Easter playdough mats.
- Then, print the document. Make sure to follow the downloading and printing suggestions listed for best results.
- Finally, pop the printables into dry erase pockets. This will create a surface suitable for play dough as well as enhancing durability. You can also laminate them if you’d rather.
- Then let the kids at them!
Keep this fairly open-ended with a little bit of guidance in the form of ideas. Some kids will meticulously trace over the images on the mats. Others will make their own versions of what’s on the mats. Still others will use them just as mats for their own creative play dough masterpieces. All of these are perfectly fine!
There are multiple Easter egg designs – 5 versions with different colors and patterns to be exact! At the bottom of the Easter egg pages it says “The colors I used:” Your students can use dry erase markers to draw or write the colors they used if they’re keeping track. Or they can place a small bit of each color of play dough down there. This is a way to encourage talking points as they’re telling their peers (or you!) about their play dough Easter eggs. It also has the benefit of working on color identification.
Benefits of Play Dough
We all know how much kids adore playing with play dough! But what exactly are the benefits for your preschoolers? In a word: LOTS! Yes, the kids will be getting so much out of these Easter play dough mats. Here’s a list of some of play dough’s benefits:
- Play dough encourages fine motor development.
- The kids get a lot of hand-strengthening opportunities.
- Play dough’s sensory aspects are calming for kids (and adults!).
- Using play dough with peers and adults gives children ample time to work on language and vocabulary development.
- Color identification opportunities pop up.
- If you let the kids help make homemade play dough, science skills come into play.
- Play dough invitations give kids the chance to be create.
Just some of the things your kids will get out of using the Easter playdough mats! Be sure to let me know how the kids like them.
Done-For-You Easter Resources
Let Preschool Teacher 101 save you time this spring! We’ve got over 100 fully-developed lesson plan packs ready for you (along with a variety of math, STEM, literacy, dramatic play, digital game, and song packs, too).
Click on the images below to look at each resource in depth, and you can see all of our other helpful teaching resources while you’re there!
Free Easter Playdough Mats
This free printable is available to members of Fun-A-Day’s free email community. If you’re a member, fill out the form below and the download links will be sent to your inbox. If you’re not a member, you can join us by entering your information in the form. Then you’ll receive the Easter play dough mats as a welcome gift!
You can also open the form in a new tab if that’s easier for you. Be sure to read my printing FAQs if needed!
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