Animal Tracks in Snow Playdough Forest Animals Free Poster

Free Animal Footprints Poster to use to identify animal tracks in homemade snow play dough small-world sensory play to promote the senses and hand-eye coordination in toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners.

Have you ever encountered animal tracks in the snow yet been unsure of what animal made the tracks? A snowy winter landscape is not only beautiful, but it is also an excellent means of identifying animals that have been in a particular area. But wait! You do not need to wait for real snow, which might never fall anyway, so create your own Winter Wonderland Animal Tracks in snow playdough!

Forest Animal Figurines

• White-Tailed Buck
• 5 Forest Animals Bundle
• Set: Moose, Grizzly Bear, Fox, Wolf and Alligator
• Beaver

Accessories, pine trees and play dough — all linked below.

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Animal Tracks in Snow Playdough

If you’re looking for a fun addition to your winter-themed activities, making animal tracks in snow play dough is a great way to spark creativity and keep little ones engaged. This simple project turns ordinary play dough fun into an adventure for little hands. You can use dough stamps or a set of plastic animals to press into the dough, creating tracks from different animals like deer, foxes, and even rabbit tracks. It’s amazing to watch how children’s imaginations take off as they explore the shapes and patterns.

Not only is this activity packed with great value—hello, hours of entertainment!—but it also inspires fun ways to learn about wildlife and habitats. Pair it with storytime or a nature walk to make it even more meaningful. Whether using animal toys or getting creative with homemade stamps, this hands-on play is sure to bring a winter wonderland indoors.

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Free Animal Tracks Footprints Poster

Use the animals you have and invite a child to imprint the footsteps in the snow play-dough. Then, look at the poster and the snow tracks and offer to find and mark the footprint on the poster that resembles one in the snow-dough the closest.

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How to Identify Animal Tracks in Nature

Footprints in Snow

Snow will preserve the tracks of a cottontail rabbit, fox, wolf, white-tailed deer, mountain lion, raccoon, and many other animals that cohabitate in a particular area. Besides, animal tracks are a window into an otherwise hidden world of wild animals. Animals are all around us, but many are shy or seldom seen. Animal tracks (also called animal footprints, pug marks, traces, spoor, impressions, etc.) are a powerful tool for learning about the wildlife around us. Thus, identifying animal tracks in snow playdough is a fun and educational small-world sensory play to learn about animal footprints.

Materials and Supplies

Below is the list of materials and supplies you will need for this animal footprints small-world sensory play:

• *Play dough ~ click here for the homemade no-cook play dough recipe.
• Forest accessories ~ we used pine trees (also use natural moss, sticks, pebbles, etc.)
• Animal figurines (linked individually below, or purchase as a set here).
• Animal track cards ~ purchase here.

Tip: To make play dough, have a white ‘snow-resembling’ color; add this food coloring and add another 1/4 cup of water since liquid coloring will thicken the consistency.

SKILLS your child is learning with Animal Tracks Snow Playdough:

So many skills are involved in this simple set-up of hands-on animal tracks in snow play dough invitation play! Children will love making homemade play dough while strengthening the small muscles of the hands during the kneading process. Most of all, they will enjoy bringing animals to life while ‘walking’ them in a snowy play-dough forest.

Instructions:

First, offer to match animals to their pictures. Then, imprint animals in play dough as they make their way through the winter forest. Invite a child to examine the footprints of each animal. Ask questions: how are they different? How many toes does an animal have? Does it look like a hoof? Finally, after examining the footprints and animals’ feet, match the animal track cards to the actual footprint left in the snow.

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Winter Woodland Watercolor Forest Animal Tracks Montessori 3-Part Cards

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Homemade Play Dough

Homemade play dough is a fantastic choice for kids, offering many developmental benefits. It’s a safe and non-toxic option, allowing kids to explore with their senses and enhancing sensory development. As they manipulate the play dough, they fine-tune their fine motor skills, which are crucial for writing tasks. Moreover, it’s a creative outlet, encouraging artistic expression, problem-solving, and language development. Playdough play can also be calming, aiding stress management and introducing basic math and science concepts. Sharing and collaborating with others while using playdough can foster valuable social skills, making it an all-around engaging and educational activity.

Also, homemade playdough can be customized to suit a child’s preferences in colors, scents, and textures, making it even more captivating. Home-made play dough is a cost-effective option compared to store-bought alternatives, allowing for larger quantities to be made for extended playtime. Overall, homemade playdough is a versatile and beneficial tool that promotes various aspects of child development while providing hours of entertainment.

Tip: to make play dough look white like snow ❄️ add some white liquid food coloring.

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Sensory Play

Sensory play allows children to understand sensory attributes while enhancing their vocabulary as they describe the texture. Sensory play also stimulates new synapses and brain nerve connections that promote future learning, reasoning skills, and problem-solving. Moreover, cognitive development is boosted as neural pathways are formed when children explore their world through concrete materials and sensory experiences.

Be it cloud-dough, dyed rice/pasta, or play dough, sensory play strengthens small muscles of the hands ~ aka fine motor control ~ as a child squishes, kneads, transfers, manipulates, and so forth. Using play-dough, in particular, provides a wide array of developmental, learning, and especially sensory benefits.

In fact, play dough builds fine motor skills, encourages creativity, and fosters imagination while boasting many therapeutic benefits as well. It provides an excellent tactile and sensory learning experience while strengthening the small muscles of the hands. Your little one will love imprinting, squeezing, poking, pinching, squashing, and patting the play dough.

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Tracking in Snow

Tracking in the snow can be easy, but it can also be deceptively tricky since tracks are hidden at the bottom of deep leg holes in the deep snow. While trackers usually depend upon the details in each track (like the number and shape of the toes or the presence of claws) to make identifications in snow, it is often necessary to look for other clues. Patterns are one of the best tools to identify tracks in the snow, and some species are easily recognized from a distance simply by the pattern of tracks. 

Exploring Animal Tracks and Footprints in Snow Play Dough

Rabbit Footprints

Rabbit tracks are one of the most commonly seen tracks in the snow. Look for the repeating bound patterns. Each group of four tracks tends to form a tall, thin rectangle. A rabbit also has small round toes and fur-covered feet, showing five-toed front tracks with side-by-side hind tracks. (Interestingly, other rodents show only four-toed front tracks.)

All rodents, from the smallest mouse to the largest beaver (original version here) leave five-toed tracks with their hind feet. Did you know that beavers have webbed hind feet? 

In wolf tracks, claws are evident by a general symmetrical oval shape with four toes and a single lobe on the front of the main footpad.

Bear Footprints

Since bears walk on the soles of their soft feet, they often do not leave distinct tracks unless they walk through the snow. Bears have five toes on each foot, with their large toe on the outside of the foot. Front tracks are wider than rear tracks, but the small round heel pad of the front foot seldom registers. Bears tend to toe in, especially with their front feet. They often travel in an over-step walk, with their rear foot falling in front of where the front foot fell, creating double tracks and thus enormous track sizes.  In deep snow, however, bears direct-register by placing their rear foot in the same hole created by the front foot. Such a pattern makes it seem as if it is walking on two hind legs.

A fox leaves a neat pattern in the snow because of the hind footsteps in the front foot track. This is called registering, and it helps a fox to conserve energy while walking in deep snow. A deer also registers, with the hindfoot walking in the front foot track. Also, a deer usually drags its hooves, which are easy to spot in the packed snow. However, in deep snow, the hooves are more spread out, and the dewclaw is visible on the back of the track.

See here how Adrian was observing animal tracks in the real snow!

Since deer’s hind feet tend to step on top of their front tracks, leaving distorted and confusing marks in the snow, they are tough to identify. But Adrian was pretty confident that those were deer’s tracks. 

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Want more Sensory Play?

For more on animals’ tracks, read here our original lesson, “Animal Tracks Matching Game.” Also, read here about Adrian matching Animal Camouflage matching cards at 29 months.

Also, see here our Winter Inspired Unit Study for some fun hands-on Winter Kids activities.

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