Gingerbread Counting Play Dough Mats
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I absolutely love gingerbread themed activities during the Christmas season. They are so festive and I love adding new holiday activities to our day. One of our favorite things any time of year is play dough, and we love any excuse to dig out our play dough tools and have a blast creating. These Gingerbread Counting Play Dough Mats are a great hands-on math center for December, and are oh so fun!
*Pair with our Gingerbread Centers & Activities for Pre-K/Kindergarten!
Gingerbread Counting Play Dough Mats
These gingerbread play dough mats are a fun way for kids to work on counting, fine motor skills, and even addition! They are so easy to prep and pretty versatile – you can use a variety of supplies with them.
How to Prep
Simply download the play dough mats below, print, and laminate. It’s that easy!
I set the students up with play dough because we have plenty of it on hand, but you could also use real gumdrops, buttons, beads, sequins – whatever you have in your craft closet!
Another fun alternative is to use fine motor tweezers and have kids pick up small objects to place on the gingerbread man for “gumdrops.” Counting and fine motor – win win!
How to Play
The play dough mats are numbered from 1-10 and incorporate both written numerals and number words, as well as the number word used in a sentence.
We used it as a simple counting activity, rolling up the correct number of “gumdrops” with play dough bits and placing them on the gingerbread man, but for kids that are ready for more of a challenge you could incorporate addition as well.
For instance, with some groups I have two colors of play dough, and I ask them to use both colors to show me a total of __. This requires them to combine sets and break apart a number to see what it is made of, and is great practice with composing and decomposing numbers.
Grab Your FREE Copy
Ready to play? Grab some play dough and then download your own set of the gingerbread counting play dough mats by clicking the large, yellow download button at the end of the post!
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Please how can I download the gingerbread dough mat
Hi Camille,
There is a large, yellow “Download Printable Here” button at the bottom of the post that you can click on to access the free activity. Please let us know if you need any other help! 🙂