These Valentines Counting Playdough Mats are perfect as a small group activity in a preschool or kindergarten classroom. The best thing about these cute valentine play dough mats is that they are completely free. Grab your copy of this free printable for kids today, and get ready for hours of learning fun.
Set up these fun playdough mats in the math center to help your class learn a bit of math. Additionally, this fun activity is a great way to strengthen hand muscles if you’re in need of a fine motor activity for your valentines theme.
Make today easy with the Valentine’s Day Activity Pack.
For only $10 you get 90+ pages of hands-on activities and craft templates that are perfect for math and literacy centers, fine motor skills and more. Designed for preschool and kindergarten aged children.
Take a closer look inside or get it here.
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More Valentines Day Free Printables
Here are some more Valentine’s day theme free printables to try. These are a great addition to your preschool and kindergarten educational activities.
- Free Valentines addition worksheet
- Free Valentine’s Pattern printable for kids
- Heart Lacing Cards
- Free Valentines Count and Clip Cards
- Free Valentines Number Match Puzzles
Materials Needed
- Valentines Counting Playdough Mats
- Laminating sheets
- Laminating machine
- Red or pink or brown playdough
How to Make the Valentine Number Playdough Mats
Step 1. Download and print the digital pdf file found below.
The free printable playdough mats file contains 10 playdough mats. From the numbers 1 – 10. As well as a set of instructions.
Just click the blue button to get your copy.
2. Laminate each playdough mat.
Laminating helps the mats to become more sturdy and reusable. Which is ideal for preschool classrooms, where you can use the same activity for next year’s class too.
However, you can also just use sheet protectors. I prefer doing it this way when I’m at home with my kids. That way I can use the same sheet protector and just change out the playdough mats. Which makes everything more affordable as well as cutting down on using unnecessary plastic.
3. Grab your playdough
I did this activity with pink playdough, because that’s what I already had on hand. However I love the idea of using brown playdough. Because then the playdough looks like chocolate sitting in the heart shaped chocolate box.
Out of all the quick playdough recipes I’ve tried, I always come back to this Homemade Playdough Recipe. It’s always so easy to make and lasts for so much longer than store bought playdough.
How to Play
There are three different sections to these Valentines counting playdough mats. While we used them with playdough, you can also use these mats with other small parts. Lining up buttons, pom poms and heart mini erasers will all help develop fine motor skills in different ways as well as still practicing math skills.
1. Write it
Roll your playdough into long snakes. Then use these to write out the numeral written in the top right hand corner of the mat. This is a fun way to practice number recognition with the correct number formation with your younger kids.
2. Cover it
Look at the ten section frame at the bottom right hand corner of the mat. Each section contains a different number of hearts. Find which section contains the same number of hearts as the numeral above, and cover it with playdough.
For example, if you are working on the number 8 mat. Find all of the sections that have 8 hearts inside, and cover only those sections.
3. Count it.
Finally, roll the same number of playdough balls for each numeral represented, and place them in the chocolate box. For example, make 8 balls of playdough for the number 8 mat.
As well as practicing one-to-one correspondence, this is also a great opportunity to decorate your playdough “chocolates” to make them unique. Beads, yarn and pom poms are all great ways to make different kinds of chocolates.
Are you going to try these Valentines Counting Playdough Mats with your kids?
Don’t forget to pin the idea for later.
Terms of Use – This electronic file is for personal and classroom use only. It is not for commercial purposes. By using it, you agree that you will not copy or reproduce the file except for your own personal, non-commercial use.
Over 90+ pages of Valentine’s day themed play based learning activities and craft templates. Perfect for preschool and kindergarten.
