Playdough Name Mats {Free Printable}

These free editable playdough name mats are a fun, hands-on way for preschoolers to learn about the letters in their names.

collage of free editable playdough name mats

If you’re teaching kids about their names, you’ll want some fun activities in your bag of tricks. In addition to making name crafts and reading aloud books about names, your students will enjoy working with varied materials like clay or playdough.

I hope they enjoy these name mats!

I’ve made you a boy version and a girl version. You can choose color or black & white.

black and white version of the "I Can Build My Name" mat showing the name "Christopher"

Your students will use “snakes” of playdough to form each letter. You may need to help little ones roll these out, or teach them step-by-step how to do it for themselves. It’s great fine motor work!

two sets of children's hands rolling colorful playdough

After you download the pdf from the bottom of this post, you only need to open the file in Adobe Reader, type in your kids’ names, and print. Some teachers like to laminate playdough mats, which makes sense if your littles will use them multiple times. (On the other hand, if they’ll only use them once or twice, I don’t think it’s worth the time and plastic.)

Learning with Playdough Name Mats

The bottom of each mat has some prompts that you can choose from – these will help you bump up and extend the learning from this activity:

  • “Let’s count the letters in your name”
  • “Can you make a big [first letter of name]?”
  • “Tell me about the colors you used”
  • “Were any of those letters tricky to make?”
  • “Can you use the dough to make something that starts with the same sound your name starts with?”
The name "Theodore" partially spelled out in blue playdough

More Name Activities

If your kids love these (and of course they will!), my Monthly Name Practice sets include a playdough name mat and 9 other worksheets and activities each month.

Download the Free Name Mats

Ready for the free printable playdough name mats?

To get your very own copy, you can sign up right here:

I’ll add you to my weekly-ish newsletter too – it’s full of ideas and more free printables. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Happy Teaching!

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