Celebrate 4th of July with FREE printable Playdough mats

Happy July, friends! It’s so hard to believe that July is already here. Anyone else feel like summer is flying by faster and faster each year? That is one of the reasons that we are choosing to have an intentional summer. With the 4th of July weekend just around the corner, I wanted to share a few patriotic themed play dough mats with you to kick off the weekend fun with your little ones.

Have you ever tried making Jello Play Dough? You may have seen me raving about the amazing colors and simple recipe over on Instagram yesterday. It’s such an easy recipe that is perfect to make with your littlest chef. Did I mention that it smells amazing?!

Jello Play Dough Recipe

1/2 Cup Flour

1/2 Cup Warm Water

1 TBS Cream of Tarter

1 TBS Salt

1 TBS Oil

1/2 Package of Jello (in whatever color you choose)

Directions: Mix all of the ingredients together and cook over low on the stove. Be sure to stir frequently. Once the dough starts to gather in a ball, then you can take it off the stove to cool. Let it cool for about 10 minutes and then knead the dough on a cutting board. Repeat for each color that you would like to make. We store our play dough in small airtight containers. That’s it. Easy peasy!

*We used the recipe above which is half of a normal batch, but you could easy double the measurements above if you wanted to make the full recipe for each color. We just did’t need that much play dough.

Now that you have your Play Dough prepared, it’s time for the real fun! We love playing with our Play Dough with cookie cutters and rolling pins, but sometimes it’s fun to mix it up by adding in some Play Dough Mats.

Here’s the Play Dough Mats we’re sharing with you:

1) Popsicle color match: Have your little one make circles with their Play Dough in the coordinating colors and then match the colors to the dots on the page. (You could also use this with Do-a-Dot markers).

2) USA Flag: Create the stripes on the flag by making red circles and placing them on the flag. (You could also do this with Do-a-Dot markers).

3) Letter Tracing: Have your little one ‘trace’ the letters with their Play Dough.

4) Watermelon Seeds Counting: Using the included number cards choose a number of seeds for your little one to make and put on the watermelon. You can use black play dough to make it more realistic or use your red, white, & blue for a festive invitation to play.

*Tip: In order to make the mats sturdier, after printing I laminated each of the documents so that we can reuse them over & over.