If you have kids who love play dough, or bugs, or both (like I do) they will love these these beautiful bugs playdough mats.
“Don’t you think we need some new playdough mats?” my youngest child askes.
It seems he can only go a month or two before he starts nagging me for a new set of playdough mats. There’s nothing like having a four year old to make sure you don’t slack off on your blogging duties!
We discussed some ideas and options for a new set of play dough mats, and we finally settled on an insect theme!
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These beautiful bugs playdough mats are perfect for kids who love bugs, or for an insect themed learning activity.
Print the set of insect themed playdough mats and laminate them, or pop them in a dry erase pocket and they are ready to use.
We used our lovely soft microwave play dough to make our bugs, but you can use shop bought dough or your own favourite playdough recipe.
Here’s a fun new play dough recipe to try.
We love using a collection of loose parts and accessories with these fun playdough mats. You don’t need a bunch of fancy accessories or items, you can buy most of these things online (I’ve linked to some ideas in the list below) or at your local craft or dollar store, or just use whatever you have at home. Just be sure to supervise young children with any small items.
Here are some ideas of things you can use with these playdough mats:
- Sequins
- Straws, cut up
- Plastic gems
- Glass pebbles
- Beads
- Tooth picks
- Googly eyes
- Buttons
- Foam shapes.
Free Printable Bugs Playdough Mats.
There are four printable playdough mats in this beautiful bugs playdough mat set.
Each mat has an image and a question which is designed to encourage creativity and imagination. There are no right or wrong way to create with these play dough mats, so the spider has 20 legs and the butterfly has fangs on her wings, that’s perfectly fine!
My youngest kiddo had so much fun making all kinds of cool and crazy bugs with these playdough mats!
You can download the ‘This snail is missing a shell’ playdough mat here.
Then he made a ferocious three-eyed caterpillar!
I didn’t know the bugs at our house were so scary.
You can download the “Who belongs to these legs?” playdough mat here.
Now if you are scared of spiders, you should probably click away now…
Although this spider is a bit of a cutey if you ask me!
You can download the “Who lives on this web?” play dough mat here.
Last in our set of beautiful bugs is the butterfly…
You can download the “Give the butterfly some wings” playdough mat here.
Each of these printable beautiful bugs playdough mats is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open them. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.
If playdough is not your thing, these fun designs also work great with dry erase markers or crayons, or print them in black and white on plain paper and use them as drawing prompts.
Looking for more free printable playdough mats?
Check out some of our favourites below.
You can find the garden and growing playdough mats here
You can find the fun food playdough mats here
You can find the people playdough mats here.
Love all of these! Is it hard to get all the do-dads off of the playdough when the kids are done? Thanks so much. I do want to try this.
Awesome ideas…thanks for sharing. Am sure children would love to hands on with all these play dough mats and it would definitely added a touch of love in learning on…
<3
A very nice and creative addition to add to playdough fun!!
Thank you! Very creative and cute!
These are so lovely! I just printed them in preparation for a long flight with my baby daughter. We will be having lots of fun with them, many, many thanks for sharing!!
These are awsome thanks for sharing!! :)
I love these, but I can’t get them to print right! I even tried choosing fit or shrink to fit with no luck. Is it because I have a Mac? Thanks
What’s not right about how they print for you?
They should print fine with a Mac or PC, but if you can give me some more information I can see if I can work out what the problem is.
They print really low on the page. The words are in the middle of the bag and it cuts off the bottom portion of the page. For example, the one with all the legs…there is only about 1/4 inch of leg showing, the rest is cut off. Thank you!!
Hmm… that sounds like perhaps a problem with your pdf reader. Are you using the latest version of adobe acrobat?
I might be, I will check. Thank you!
I am a retired kindergarten teacher and ohhhh would I have loved to had your ideas 20 years ago!!!
Fantastic!!! BUT now I am a newly adopted grandma and Boy!! am I going to have some fun with my grandchildren.
Are these no longer available?
They are still available. There is a link to download each playdough mat under the photo of it.