These color playdough mats are print-and-use, so you can have them ready for your students tomorrow morning. Add them to your collection of playdough mats now!
The colorful playdough mats let children practice important early math and literacy skills in an engaging, hands-on way. Lots of sensory and fine motor skill opportunities, as well. Not too bad for a little free color printable, right?
Plus, you can use them in a variety of settings – small groups, one-on-one lessons, and even as part of your center time plans. And the color play dough mats can be used by kids of different ages and needs.
Related: Free Preschool Printables
Read below for prepping and usage tips, and be sure to request your copy of the playdough color mats near the bottom of this post.
Color Playdough Mats
I think these mats can be used any time of the year. They’d be perfect as part of a rainbow or colors theme, in particular. But you don’t need a special reason to break them out!
How to Prep the Colorful Play Dough Mats
First, gather the materials you’ll need to get the mats ready to go. Here’s what we tend to use (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
And that’s about it! But while you’re getting supplies ready, I recommend locating anything you’d like to use with the play dough mats. Here are some possibilities:
- Play dough (of every color, of course)
- Colorful manipulatives
- Loose parts
- Dry erase markers
Related: Math Activities for Preschoolers
Once you have all the materials you need, it’s time to prep the color playdough mats. There’s not much to it:
- First, request the printable near the bottom of this post.
- Save it to your computer and then open the PDF in the most up-to-date version of Adobe Reader.
- Print the mats, making as many copies as you’d like.
- Finally, laminate the mats or place them in dry erase pockets.
Now you’re ready to use them with your students!
How to Use the Color Playdough Mats with Kids
The main I use these is in the title – with playdough! Set out a variety of play dough colors along with the colorful play dough mats.
Encourage the children to point at the words as they read the sentence on each. Help them with this as needed, of course! Discuss the colorful items on the pages, too. You can even ask the children to come up with additional examples for each color if they’re up for it.
Encourage the kids to use the play dough to create the various items on the color playdough mats. Your students can use various methods to do this – roll play dough “snakes” and loop them on the images, pull small bits of dough off to make balls to be pressed on the mats, etc.
Other Ways to Use the Color Mats
Of course, you can use more than dough on the color playdough mats! Or you can incorporate additional items alongside the play dough. It really depends on your preferences and the interests of your students.
Here are a few additional ideas for you:
- After the kids have added playdough to the sheets, encourage them to push loose parts such as glass gems into the dough.
- Or the children can just use colorful manipulatives, like bears or Unifix cubes, to trace over the images on the pages. You can even ask the kids to count all of the manipulatives once they’re done.
- Ask the students to go on a color hunt around the classroom. Have them bring the items to the corresponding mats. Or consider having a mix of colorful items in a basket near the mats that the kids can sort.
- Pair the color playdough mats with dry erase markers, preferably color-coordinated markers. Then let the kids trace over the images on the mats.
How will you use the colorful sheets with your students? Don’t forget to request your copy via the form near the bottom of this post.
What are Kids Learning with the Color Playdough Mats?
Yes, the colorful dough mats are fun. And there’s nothing wrong with planning activities just for the fun of it! Of course, we all know that young children are constantly learning. And that’s definitely the case with the printable color pages.
Here are some of the concepts your students are practicing with the color playdough mats:
- Color identification
- Fine motor skills
- Sorting
- Counting
- High frequency words
- Color words
- Early reading skills
- Sensory exploration
It’s always interesting to see which skills individual children are drawn to, isn’t it? How do you think your students will interact with the color playdough mats?
More Color Activities for Kids
Here are a few more color ideas to use with the kids, alongside the color playdough mats:
If you’re looking for some materials you can buy on Amazon, here you go:
- Farmer’s Market Color Sorting Set
- Magnetic Color Sorting
- Counting and Sorting Animals
- Birds in a Nest Sorting Set
Feel free to share your favorite color ideas in the comments below!
Nonseasonal Play Dough Mats Bundle
The free printable color playdough mats are a small sample of the big nonseasonal play dough bundle found at my sister site, Preschool Teacher 101.
We created Preschool Teacher 101 to help other early childhood educators take back their personal time. You’ll find hundreds of lesson plans, dramatic play packs, math games, STEM challenges, teacher guides, and so much more! These fully-developed, done-for-you early childhood resources will save you so much time. That way you can focus on teaching and connecting with your students.
Click on the image below for the BIG play dough mats bundle. It has over 300 pages of color and black-and-white mats that can be used throughout the year. The bundle contains 15 concepts and themes, like shapes, colors, weather, dinosaurs, etc.
Be sure to check out The Pack, our membership for preschool and kindergarten teachers. We have multiple membership options, and members get access to our resources at a very steep discount!
You can also find us on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Request the Color Playdough Mats Sample
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 printable color playdough mats as a welcome gift!
Please be sure to check out my printing FAQ page if you run into any issues.
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