Play Dough Mats- it’s “dough” much fun!

I don’t know about you but play dough is where it’s at! My toddler LOVES playing with it. What holds his attention even more? Fun play dough mats! Playing with play dough mats is a wonderful fine motor activity for your little one. They are also a great way to help your child develop their vocabulary and various other learning skills. My little guy loves to create silly faces or fun designs on his mats.

No play dough at home? No worries, make your own homemade super soft play dough! Click here for the recipe!

Extend the Play Dough Mats Activity:

Be an Observer & Create Conversation

Observe your child as they create and play with the play dough mats. To engage them in conversation, ask them about the things they are creating. For example, ask about the colors they are using and the shapes they are making.

Here is an idea to deepen the discussion…

Ask your child about the individual mats. There are various mats and you can use each mat to spark new discussion. On the alien mat, have a conversation about what aliens are. Do they think they are real or make believe? Where do they think aliens live? The butterfly mat is another opportunity for a great discussion. Ask your child what they know about butterflies. “Can butterflies fly? How do you know? What other insects can fly?” Have fun comparing and contrasting other insects to the butterfly.

Include shapes, numbers, and colors

Tell your child specific shapes to add to their design. Have them add circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, etc. For example, say, “Now add a circle to the top of the cupcake.” 

Even more fun- you can make shapes on the mats and ask them what shapes you created. 

Extra Challenging (include shapes plus numbers and colors)

You can make it more challenging by adding quantities and colors to your directions. Say, “Can you add two orange squares to the butterfly wings? Then add four green circles.” Now you are challenging them and working on numbers, colors and shapes all at once. You are even giving multi-step directions. The best part- they won’t even realize how much they are working those little genius toddler brains of theirs! Win-win mamas! 

Have fun with the Blank Face Play Dough Mats:

Test Their Knowledge of Body Parts

With the play dough mats that have the blank faces, you can test their knowledge of body parts. Ask them to add different body parts such as eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, ears, etc. Say, “Can you add a nose to the robot’s face? Now can you add 4 extra arms to the robot’s body?”

Have them Show Different Emotions on the Faces

Challenge their knowledge of emotions. Ask them to create a face that looks happy, for example. Discuss what makes someone look happy. Talk about how when someone has a big smile on their face (and their eyebrows might be slightly raised) it indicates that they are happy.

Likewise, ask them to make a mad face on the play dough mat. Discuss what makes someone look angry. Say, “How can you tell that someone is angry? What happens to someone’s face when they are mad?” You can discuss that some indicators of anger might include furrowed eyebrows & not smiling.

Continue this activity by having them create other emotions on the mats. Discuss how when someone is sad they are frowning, their eyes might be turned down, or even have tears coming from their eyes. Keep asking your child to show different emotions on the faces. You can even have them think of some on their own! Play a game with it- take turns showing different emotions on the faces and making each other guess which emotion they tried to make.

Hope you found these extension ideas for the play dough mats helpful! For more learning and play dough mat fun check out these Ten Frames Play Dough Mats!

Happy playing & learning!