Christmas Playdough: Homemade Fun for the Holidays

As the holiday season approaches, keeping children engaged can be a challenge. Why not introduce them to some sensory play of with homemade Christmas playdough?

In this blog post, we will guide you on how to make playdough at home, giving it a festive touch. We’ll also share creative ideas for Christmas playdough activities that your kids will love, including Christmas playdough mats, invitations to play, and even math activities.

So, prepare to dive into the creative and entertaining world of Christmas playdough, where learning meets fun!

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With our step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to make playdough that’s safe, non-toxic, and perfect for little hands to mold and shape. We’ll show you how to add a Christmas twist with festive colors and scents that will truly bring the holiday spirit to life.

But the fun doesn’t stop at making homemade playdough for Christmas.

Once your kids have their Christmas playdough ready, the real entertainment begins!

We’ll provide a range of activity ideas that go beyond the standard playdough shapes.This includes holiday-themed playdough mats, Christmas playdough invitations to play, and even mathematical exercises incorporated into the sensory fun.

These activities not only keep them engaged but also help enhance their fine motor skills and boost their creativity. Get ready to make this holiday season more memorable with our homemade Christmas playdough and fun-filled activities!

Christmas Playdough Recipe

Our Christmas playdough recipe goes beyond providing a soft, pliable dough for molding; it’s enriched with the quintessential fragrances of the holiday season.

To make our playdough, we relied on our trusty, fool-proof, easy, perfect every time, classic cooked playdough recipe. Our playdough recipe without cream of tartar is another excellent option.

How to Make Christmas Scented Playdough

Creating playdough that emits the comforting and familiar aromas of Christmas is incredibly simple. We utilized a range of common kitchen spices and fragrance oils to achieve this. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Make a playdough base, like our classic cooked playdough recipe.
2. Allow to cool.
3. Knead in a few teaspoons of spices to each batch.

Spices to Use

This time of year, cinnamon is always the first spice that comes to mind. But don’t forget about these other holiday spices! These spices are also great options for fall scented playdough recipes, too.

• cinnamon
• allspice
• cloves
• cardamon
• ginger
• nutmeg

Fragrance Oils to Use

Fragrance oils and essential oils are another simple way to add Christmas scents to your base playdough recipe. Just follow the same steps as above. Here are some Christmas fragrances to consider.

• pine
• toasted marshmallow
• campfire
• peppercorn
• mistletoe
• cedar

Christmas Playdough Invitation to Play

In my preschool classroom, playdough is an essential part of our daily activities. We strongly promote the use of playdough as a tool for enhancing hand strength and honing fine motor skills.

Every time I whip up a new batch of homemade playdough, such as this Christmas-inspired scented recipe, we kick off the fun with an invitation to engage in play. This is just a little time for the preschoolers to use the playdough as they please.

In our preschool classroom, the children thoroughly enjoy utilizing various gadgets and implements with their playdough.

A favorite activity among them is using unique rolling pins that imprint exciting patterns onto the dough.

There are kids who derive pleasure from kneading and molding the dough manually, while others are inclined towards employing petite tools such as mini rolling pins, cookie cutters, and small spatulas.

So, I try to offer a little bit of everything.

The most popular playdough tools are Christmas rolling pins and cookie stamps. They consist of entertaining shapes and images which, when pressed into the dough, create cool indentations.

These tools aid in enhancing the precision of our hand and finger movements for more meticulous tasks.

Naturally, to make our Christmas playdough sensory play even more exciting, we incorporate some delightful holiday-themed elements!

During our play sessions, the preschoolers frequently gravitate towards acrylic snowflakes to imprint into the soft playdough.

They eagerly explore the impressions these snowflakes make, and some take it up a notch by positioning the plastic snowflakes upright in the dough, creating their own mini winter wonderland.

Christmas Playdough Manipulatives

Our favorite playdough manipulatives are acrylic table scatter. These are some examples of what I have in my fall theme preschool box.

Christmas Playdough Activities

Christmas-scented playdough paves the way for a so many enjoyable Christmas activities!

The children can hone their early literacy and numeracy skills by practicing the formation of letters and numbers.

Moreover, the actions of rolling, squeezing, and manipulating the dough aid in developing crucial fine motor skills, thus laying a solid groundwork for future writing.

Here are some wonderful Christmas playdough ideas to incorporate into your holiday preschool lesson plans.

• Montessori Inspired Christmas Playdough
• Button Decorated Christmas Playdough Trees
• Playdough Candy Canes
• Christmas Reindeer Playdough
• Gingerbread Man Playdough Activities

Christmas Playdough Mats

In our preschool class, using fall-themed playdough mats in our fine motor skills center is a real treat.

These mats not only make learning fun with their seasonal designs, but they also help preschoolers develop important skills.

When we press, squeeze, and mold playdough to fill in the autumn-themed pictures on these mats, we’re actually getting better at using our fingers and hands. It’s like a fun workout for our small muscles!

Here are some of our favorite free autumn playdough mats.

• Iconic Christmas Scenes Playdough Mats
• Christmas Ten Frame Cards for Playdough
• 12 Christmas Playdough Mats
• Gingerbread Man Playdough Mats

Sarah Punkoney, MAT

I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.

stayathomeeducator.com/