If your students love playdough mats, these dental playdough mats are just what you need! Break out your favorite dough during your next dental health theme.
The kids will strengthen their hand muscles, practice fine motor skills, and work on early literacy. All of this, while having fun with play dough! You’ll even be able to talk about dental hygiene along the way. Not too bad for free printable play dough mats.
Related: Free Preschool Printables
Read below for prepping tips, as well as ideas for how to use the dentist-themed play dough mats. Then head to the bottom of the post to request your own copy of the fine motor mats.
Dental Playdough Mats
Once you teach your students how to use the mats, they’re perfect for your sensory or fine motor center. And what a great lead-in to discussing the dentist in a safe manner.
How to Prep the Play Dough Mats
First, grab all the materials you’ll need. Here are some possibilities (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
- Printer
- Laminator
- Play dough
- White glass gems
- Dry erase pockets
- Mini erasers
Once you have what you need, it’s time to prep the dental playdough mats! Here’s what to do:
- First, get the free printable sent to you. You can request it at the bottom of this post.
- Next, download the printable and print out however many copies you’d like.
- Then laminate the mats or place them in dry erase pockets.
- Finally, set the mats out with some play dough.
And now you’re ready to call the kids over to play!
Using the Dental Playdough Mats
Once the children have gathered around, let them choose the play dough colors they’d like to use. Yes, they can match the colors on the mats, but they don’t have to! Some kids will want to, while others will be happier using non-matching colors.
At this point, you sit back and watch the children create! Even better, grab your own playdough mat and create with your students. Participate in their discussions along the way and enjoy spending time with the kids.
Related: Farm Animal Playdough Mats
Some children will enjoy rolling playdough snakes out, using the snakes to create different dental-themed items. Other kids will grab and press chunks of play dough to the mats. Still others will create their own versions of the dental items, or something completely different!
No matter how the children use the dental playdough mats, they’ll get a lot out of the process! Conversations about the dentist, fine motor practice, exploring literacy with the words on the mats, color identification, and so much more!
More Ways to Use the Playdough Mats
Of course, you don’t have to JUST use play dough! There are a variety of other ways to use the dental playdough mats. Here are a few to get you started:
- Have kids trace over the images with tooth-themed mini erasers or other manipulatives.
- Let the children use dry erase markers to do the same.
- Encourage your students to press small manipulatives, like glass gems, into the playdough after they’ve made each image.
- Challenge the kids to count all of the manipulatives used to trace over each image.
Of course, you and your students might come up with even more ways to use the dentist-themed play dough mats. If so, be sure to let me know about it in the comments.
What’s Included in the Printable?
The free printable dental playdough mats come with seven dentist-themed pages:
- Toothbrush
- Floss
- Smile
- Mouthwash
- Toothpaste
- Tooth
- Cup
Each page has a simple sentence along the top, following the same structure of “I can make the . . .” There are also reference images in the bottom corners.
More Fun Play Dough Ideas
If your students love the dental playdough mats, I’ve got more play dough ideas for you to check out:
What are some of your favorite ways to use play dough in the classroom?
Play Dough Mats and Dental Lesson Plans
Let Preschool Teacher 101 make your teaching life a whole lot easier with done-for-you early childhood education resources! We have hundreds of materials for you – from lesson plans to dramatic play to STEM to fine motor. And so much more. While you’re at it, check out The Pack, our membership for preschool and kindergarten teachers. Members have access to our materials at a steep discount.
Click on the image below to get our non-seasonal playdough mats bundle. They’re perfect to use any time of the year and can be integrated into so may teaching units.
We also have three amazing products for your next preschool or kindergarten dental theme! One is a set of lesson plans chock full of detailed plans, book ideas, and related printables. The second is a dentist office dramatic play pack to inspire your students’ imaginative play. And the third is a circle time song activities pack. So much goodness to choose from! Click on the images below to get your own:
Get the Dental Play Dough Mats
This free printable is available to members of Fun-A-Day’s email community. If that’s you, please enter your email in the form below to have the download link sent to your inbox. If you’re not receiving emails from me yet, you can sign up by entering your information in the same form! Then you’ll receive the dental playdough mats as a welcome gift.
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