Free Printable Christmas Play Dough Set

Explore Hands On Learning With This Free Christmas Play Dough Printable Set

Did someone say hands-on learning?!  Hands-on learning is music to my ears (that I love almost as much as I love Christmas carols!).  It doesn’t get better than an activity that your child is fully engaged in and learning from!  This play dough set is just one of many amazing hands- on learning activities we have at Life Over Cs!  Once you are done with this play dough set, be sure to check out more of our favorite hands-on Christmas activities!

And all this talk about hands-on learning reminds me that if you love hands-on play dough activities as much as we do, you can’t miss this Ultimate Guide of the Best Play Dough Activities and Recipes!

Need More Awesome Christmas Themed Activities?  Check Out Some Of Our Favorites:

• Beautiful Christmas Tree Toilet Paper Roll Craft for Kids
• Super Easy Reindeer Snack Crackers for Kids
• Free Christmas Scavenger Hunt Printable for Kids
• Christmas Tree CVC Word Building Mat

The Amazing Benefits Of Using A Printable Play Dough Set With Preschoolers:

Why Is Pretend Play Important for Preschoolers?

This Christmas printable set is the perfect way to encourage your preschoolers to engage in pretend play.  When they see the adorable people dressed in their holiday best, the colorful lights, and amazing trees they will be dreaming up all kinds of holiday stories to act out while pretend playing!

I wish I had all day to tell you about all the amazing reasons that kids should engage in pretend play!  But here are just a few of the many reasons you should set up activities for your preschoolers that promote pretend play:

Cognitive Development:  Pretend play helps kids to engage in imaginative thinking and introduces them to problem solving and decision making skills.  From setting up this play dough pretend play set to thinking up holiday problems that the characters have to solve, this activity is full of opportunities for this!

Social and Emotional Skills:  When engaging in pretend play with others, kids can become more empathetic and practice important social skills like cooperation, sharing, and compromising!  (Need more activities to practice social skills and emotions? Here are 10+ Social Emotional Activities!)  This Christmas set is a great way to act out pretend situations!  Who will take turns decorating the Christmas tree?  Who is patiently waiting for their turn to open a Christmas present?  There are so many great situations you can talk out while playing with this Christmas set to help emotionally prepare your child for the holidays!

Language Development:  Using a play dough set like this Christmas one is also fantastic for language development since kids will be talking to one another and pretending to be the characters in the set!

If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of pretend play for preschoolers, be sure to read about the importance of pretend play in this article from Scholastic!

Why Combine Play Dough and Printable Play Sets?

Adding a Printable Christmas Play Set to play dough is an awesome way to encourage creativity in preschoolers while also helping them build other important skills!  Printable play sets help to give them a little structure for imaginary play (like characters and a setting) while leaving the rest of the imaginary play up to them!

Kids will love setting up the Christmas characters, presents, trees, and lights in the play dough.  There are so many benefits to doing this activity that is super easy to set up!

Printable play sets are also amazing for fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, and using spatial reasoning skills to place and move around the pieces.  They are such a great way to provide a little structure to the activity while still allowing for so much creative expression and play!

Materials You Will Need For This Christmas Play Dough Printable Set:

• Paper
• Laminating Materials
• Scissors
• Play Dough

Step-by-Step Instructions for assembling the Christmas Play Dough Printable Set:

Step One:

Print out your Christmas Themed Pretend Play Set onto white card stock.  Depending on how many children you are going to have playing, you may want to print out a few copies of the play set!

Step Two:

Cut out and laminate the play set.  Laminating is optional, but I highly recommend it because it makes it more durable and it will last longer as little hands are playing with it and moving the pieces around.

Step Three:

Add play dough and the play set onto a tray or into a clear shallow bin like a sensory bin. I love doing this because it makes clean up really easy and keeps all of the play dough and printable play set pieces together in one area.

Teacher Tip: Did you know it is SUPER easy to make your own play dough? Check out one of our favorite recipes here! Bonus- kids LOVE to help with this part!!

Step Four:

Watch as imaginations run wild and the pretend play set comes to life with Christmas themed story lines and characters!

Awesome Job! Your Play Set Is Ready!  What Next?

Great job getting your play set ready to go!   One of my favorite ways to set up a play dough printable play set activity is to be a small group or partner activity.  I just love watching kids come together to play and work to create a fun holiday scene full of smiles and laughter!

If you want, you can also set this up as an independent activity or even a station in center rotations.  You can act as an observer or a facilitator in an activity like this!  In my teaching experience, I have found that sometimes kids may just need one small idea or suggestion to spark hours of creative play!  If you are playing one on one with your child or a student, this is a great time to model some new vocabulary or even introduce your child to some Christmas traditions they may not be familiar with!

Here are some of our other favorite ways to use the printable set:

• Read a Christmas book and use the pretend set to act out the scenes! Check out some of our favorite Christmas Books here!
• Use the set to work on role playing conflicts with friends or how to talk about feelings.
• Add this play dough printable set to a play dough invitation.  This 4th of July Play Dough Activity Try for Preschoolers is a great example of how to set one up (just change the theme to Christmas/Winter) and then you can just add in your printable play set.
• Add the printable set to a sensory bin.  We have a list of Easy Rice Sensory Bin Ideas Kids Love here!

How To Differentiate Learning With This Pretend Set For Play Dough:

It’s super easy to differentiate learning with this pretend set for play dough.  With just a few small additions or changes you can easily make this activity meet the needs of all of your learners or skills that you are working on.  Here are some easy modifications you can make:

• Incorporate another level of sensory exploration by adding a scented play dough like this Easy No-Cook Apple Cinnamon Play Dough.
• Add additional props with labels to help with language development and story creation!
• Add more tools for strengthening fine motor skills by adding rolling pins, tweezers, or cookie cutters.
• Add another step to this activity and make your own play dough!  Try our 3- Ingredient Taste Safe Play Dough Recipe for Kids or this Easy Homemade Play Dough Recipe for Kids.
• It’s the more the merrier when it comes to play dough sets!  Add in another set like this Ice Skating Winter Play Dough Printable to make for more imaginary play opportunities!
• Allow your child to put their own spin on the play dough activity!  My son always loves adding in a transportation vehicle of some kind, while my daughter loves adding in little lego people to add to the fun!

More Ways To Celebrate Christmas Time With Play Dough Activities:

• Free Printable Christmas Tree Shape Play Dough Mats are great for practicing shapes!
• Work on the skill of counting with Play Dough Christmas Tree Counting Mats for Numbers 1-10.
• Make a wreath out of play dough, or try this Beautiful Christmas Paper Plate Wreath for Preschoolers.
• Add play dough to a sensory bin, or try this Lemon and Cranberry Sensory Bin for Christmas.
• Use play dough to cover the numbers in Free Christmas Roll and Cover Number Recognition Games.
• Here is more winter shape practice with Free Printable Gingerbread Shape Play Dough Mats.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are frequently asked questions about this Christmas Play Dough Printable Set:

Thanks for Checking Out This Creative Christmas Play Dough Activity for Kids!

We hope the most wonderful time of the year just got made even better with this Christmas Play Dough Printable Activity! Leave us a comment and let us know how much your children enjoyed this printable play set and then head over to Live Over Cs for more easy and low prep activities to help celebrate the season while learning through hands-on play!