There are few things that keep my kids engaged as long as play dough invitations, and anything that involves the idea of baking or food tends to add in even more excitement. For our Thanksgiving activities I put together this quick prep pumpkin pie play dough fractions free printable. It’s a fun and meaningful way to weave in a bit of math alongside our pretend play and sensory activities with pumpkin pie scented play dough.
GET A FULL WEEK OF THANKSGIVING THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE PRESCHOOL LESSON PLANS.
Pumpkin Pie Play Dough Fractions Materials
This pumpkin pie play dough invitation can be set up as a stand alone activity or added to your kitchen pretend play area. These are the materials I used:
- Pumpkin pie scented play dough: I started with an easy play dough recipe and added orange food coloring and pumpkin pie spice. It smells amazing!
- Dough cutting and rolling tools
- Plates
- Decorative wooden leaves to use for decoration on top of the pie pieces
- Free printable pumpkin pie mat and fractions cards (link at bottom of post): I chose to use a flat mat for the pie instead of pie tins because it makes it easier for kids to focus on cutting the equal parts, but if you are not doing the fractions concept you could also add in a pie tin.
See it in Action
Once kids sniff the delicious smelling pumpkin pie play dough they can’t wait to dive in and start creating. If your little ones are new to baking you may want to discuss and model the steps to bake a pie. Doing so is also a helpful way to weave in some oral vocabulary as you talk about dough, a smooth surface, crust, rolling pins, etc.
Experienced mini bakers will also love pinching up the edges of the dough to create their pie crusts. It’s excellent fine motor pracice, too!
If you’re using the math task cards, kids can select a card and then try to cut their pie into equal parts as shown on their task card. No worries if they don’t get it exactly equal…we’re just introducing the concept of fractions here with preschoolers and kindergarteners!
Once kids have cut apart their pie they can use items to decorate the pie. Then serve it up on a plate and dive into some pretend play!
If multiple kids are creating pies cut into different parts, you can also guide some discussions about which parts of the whole are bigger or smaller and gently introduce the idea of comparing fractions.
But again the idea of fractions is a bit challenging for little learners, and it takes a lot of concrete experiences like this one to really help them understand the ideas. So discuss the concepts but don’t expect complete skill mastery just yet!
Pumpkin Pie Play Dough Fractions Free Printable
The free printable includes two pumpkin pie mats (one in color and one in black and white) and four pumpkin pie fraction task cards.
Complete the form below to request your play dough fractions printable, and it will be emailed to you shortly.
GET A FULL SET OF THANKSGIVING THEME ACTIVITIES
The 159-page Thanksgiving Lesson Plan Set includes hands-on activities and these additional printables:
1) Pumpkin Pie Letter Matching (in color and b/w)
2) Rhyming Turkey Game
3) Turkey Color Sorting Mats (in color and b/w)
4) Turkey Counting Mats 1-20 (in color and b/w)
5) Look at the Turkey Emergent Reader (3 variations)
6) How to Make a Pumpkin Pie Sequencing Cards (in color and b/w)
7) 0-35 Turkey Number Cards (4 variations)
8) Phoneme Segmentation Turkey Activity
9) Thanksgiving Taste Test Recording Sheet (in color and b/w)
10) Thanksgiving Picture-Word Cards (in color and b/w)
11) Thanksgiving Roll and Graph (2 variations, in color and b/w)
Also available on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Sarah
Link for the pumpkin pie printable will not open at all. So I can’t request that the free printable be sent to my email. 🙁
Shaunna
Hi Sarah,
I’m so sorry you’re having difficulty. Please review these tips to help troubleshoot: https://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/get-help-printables. There are suggestions regarding what to do if you are not seeing the freebie emails, what to do if you are having trouble downloading the file, what to do if you are having trouble printing files, and more.
-Shaunna
Pam Bonura
Received it, but unable to print.
Shaunna
Hi Pam,
I’m so sorry you’re having difficulty. Please review these tips to help troubleshoot: https://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/get-help-printables. There are suggestions regarding what to do if you are not seeing the freebie emails, what to do if you are having trouble downloading the file, what to do if you are having trouble printing files, and more.
-Shaunna
Pam Bonura
Unable to print the fraction pumpkin playdoh activity.
Please assist.
Thank you.
Pam
Shaunna
Hi Pam,
I’m so sorry you’re having difficulty. Please review these tips to help troubleshoot: https://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/get-help-printables. There are suggestions regarding what to do if you are not seeing the freebie emails, what to do if you are having trouble downloading the file, what to do if you are having trouble printing files, and more.
-Shaunna