If your kids love all things creepy crawly they'll love these free printable bug playdough mats. They're a great way to let children explore bugs without having to touch real ones, and they'll be working their fine motor skills and learning about different parts of bugs as they play.
Simply download the file, print, laminate and use with store bought or homemade playdough and loose parts.
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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, stretching, pinching, rolling, poking, pulling, cutting and tearing playdough helps kids build hand strength and use their pincer grip which are important pre-writing skills.
If you're looking for more bug activities check out how we made spiders with playdough and loose parts, or our printable bug scavenger hunt.
HOW TO PLAY WITH BUG PLAYDOUGH MATS
- Download free template {below}
- Print on white paper
- Laminate for durability
- Add playdough or loose parts
Once I printed out the sheets I laminated them straight away so they can be reusable. You can usually get cheap laminators from most stationary stores, department stores or online at Amazon or Amazon AU. Alternatively you can use them with dry erase pouches.
When our sheets were ready I set them out with some playdough. You can also use them with loose parts like pom poms, gems and match sticks, or with washable markers.
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FREE PRINTABLE BUG PLAYDOUGH MATS
The set includes 4 different playdough mats - a snail, a leaf, a spider and a bee. Each of the mats come with a decoration prompt as an idea for how the kids can decorate them, including giving the snail a shell, adding a caterpillar to the leaf, giving the spider some legs and giving the bee some wings. The designs are deliberately simple to provide a blank canvas so the kids can be as creative as they like.
These playdough mats would also pair really well with our free Spring playdough mats which include garden and outdoor themes.
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You can also use these playdough mats to help develop language and social skills by asking children questions while they're playing, e.g. how many legs does the spider have? Why do bees need wings? What shape is the snail's shell? This is also a great way to reinforce different parts of bugs as well.
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DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE PRINTABLE BUG PLAYDOUGH MATS
Click on the download template button below to get these free printable bug playdough mats sent to your device. The file is a 4 page PDF which can be printed as many times as you need. The PDFs are in A4 size so can be downloaded and printed as is in Australia, if you're printing using US letter size make sure you check the fit to page box before printing.
Please note these bug playdough mats are for personal or classroom use only, they cannot be electronically uploaded, reproduced, published or sold on any platform. If you would like to share these playdough mats or include them in a blog post please link back to this post directly.
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MORE BUG PLAYDOUGH MATS
If your kids love these free printable playdough mats, I also have a full set of bug playdough mats in my Etsy store. The full set has 14 mat designs including:
- Butterfly. Add wings
- Leaf. Add a caterpillar to the leaf
- Ant hill. Add ants
- Ladybug. Add spots
- Green beetle. Add legs
- Earthworm. Add stripes
- Caterpillar. Add stripes or spots
- Spider. Add legs
- Dragonfly. Add wings
- Bee. Add wings
- Snail. Add a shell
- Slug. Add spots
- Butterfly. Decorate the butterfly
- Yellow Beetle. Add legs
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Disclosure - This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience, which means I may makes a small commission at no cost to you, should you make a purchase.
