🧠 Helping Toddlers Learn Emotional Regulation Through Playdough and Visual Supports

Big feelings are a big part of toddlerhood. From happy giggles to frustrated tears, emotions can change in seconds — and that’s totally normal. But helping toddlers learn to identify, express, and manage those emotions is one of the most important skills we can teach as parents.

That’s where hands-on tools like Feeling Playdough Mats and Feelings Charts come in. These simple, printable activities make emotional learning fun, sensory, and visual — perfect for young children who learn best through play.

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🌈 What Are Feeling Playdough Mats?

Feeling Playdough Mats are printable templates that show different emotions — happy, sad, mad, scared, calm, surprised — and invite your child to create faces using playdough.

Your toddler can:

• Roll and shape playdough to form facial expressions (great for fine motor practice too!)

• Talk about how that feeling looks and feels

• Match emotions to real-life experiences (“I feel mad when my toy breaks”)

This type of play builds emotional awareness and fine motor skills at the same time. It helps children connect how a feeling looks to how it feels inside their body — the foundation of emotional regulation.

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💛 How Playdough Builds Emotional Regulation

When children use their hands to express emotions, they are:

• Releasing tension and energy in a safe way

• Learning to name and recognize their feelings

• Practicing calming sensory input through touch and movement

• Gaining control over their environment (“I can change this face — I can change how I feel”)

Playdough becomes more than just play — it’s a self-regulation tool disguised as fun.

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🏠 How to Use a Feelings Chart at Home

Pair your Feeling Playdough Mats with a Toddler Feelings Chart to create a calm, emotionally aware environment at home.

Try these simple ideas:

1. Create a Calm Corner

Hang your feelings chart in a cozy space with pillows, sensory toys, and books. This becomes your child’s go-to place when they need to cool down or talk about emotions.

2. Use It Daily

Check in each morning or before bed — “How are you feeling today?” Let your toddler point to, name, or draw their feeling.

3. Model the Language

Kids learn through imitation! Try saying, “I feel frustrated because dinner is taking longer than I hoped. I’m going to take deep breaths.”

4. Connect It to the Playdough Mats

If your child points to “mad,” invite them to create a mad face with playdough. It’s a gentle bridge between identifying and processing the feeling.

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🌿 Combining Both Tools for Emotional Growth

When you combine visual tools (like a Feelings Chart) with sensory tools (like Playdough Mats), you give your child multiple ways to understand emotions.

They can see it, name it, touch it, and talk about it.

That’s how emotional regulation starts to click for toddlers — through repetition, connection, and play.

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🛒 Ready to Start?

You can grab both the Feeling Playdough Mats and Toddler Feelings Chart below 👇. Together, they make a powerful toolkit for your little one's emotional regulation — and a calmer, more connected home for you.

Listen to the episode HERE.

Join my toddler feelings mastercourse HERE.

Grab my FREE feelings playdough mats HERE.

Grab my FREE feelings chart HERE.

Grab my FREE Santa Claus Emotional playmats HERE.