Gingerbread Man “Play-Doh” Decorating Party & FREE Printable Placemat

‘Tis the holiday season! What family traditions does your family partake in during the holiday season? Each year, I work to create a list of activities, deeds and outings for our children and our family to engage in.

​One of our favorite household traditions is decorating gingerbread houses. We love playing with the icing, all of the goodies and of course, sampling along the way. While I certainly love holiday sweets as much as the next gal, I love finding activities that are interactive for my young children, but that maybe skip on the added sugar.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when I stumbled upon this amazing homemade playdough company that had put together little holiday activity kits. I immediately ordered one kit for each child (and an extra for myself) and then we put together a little outdoor activity one afternoon to play with them.

To make clean up easy, and to add a little decoration to the table, I placed these printable placemats down at each child’s station. If you wanted these placemats to be reusable, simply laminate after printing for an easily cleanable surface. Or, you can utilize both as a coloring activity mat and a placemat for the play dough. Download your FREE printable holiday coloring placemat at the end of this post.

My kids loved rolling their dough out, attempting to cut gingerbread man shapes and then decorating them with the included plastic beads. When they were finished, we simply put the dough back into the containers, ready to play with on another afternoon. While these little gingerbread man didn’t satisfy a sweet tooth, they made our kiddos happy again and again, and this mommy happy that they were interacting with a fun toy that allowed them to be creative and free. Happy Holidays!!