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Home / Early Learning / Sensory / Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

Shared by Mary Catherine 4 Comments

Deliciously scented apple play dough is perfect for a preschool apple theme!

Table of Contents

  • apple play dough that smells delicious!
  • Materials Needed for the Spicey Apple Playdough
  • Making the Play Dough
  • Done-for-You Preschool Resources

apple play dough that smells delicious!

Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

We have had this awesome-smelling apple play dough at preschool since the very first day!  As I mentioned previously, September’s theme is “An Apple for the Teacher”.  Playdough is always a hit with the kiddos, so I knew I wanted to incorporate it into our first week of school.  This sounds so dorky, I know, but I am so proud of how well this play dough recipe turned out!  🙂

Materials Needed for the Spicey Apple Playdough

The base of the recipe is The Imagination Tree’s “Best Ever No-Cook Play Dough Recipe!”  This is one of my favorite basic play dough recipes, alongside those found at Nurturestore.  I didn’t add glycerine to my play dough (since I didn’t have any on hand), and I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil (since I had run out).

Below is a list of ingredients for the original recipe, along with the items I used as substitutions and added. I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

  • All-purpose flour – 2 cups
  • Vegetable oil or olive oil– 2 tablespoons
  • Salt – 1/2 cup
  • Cream of tartar – 2 tablespoons
  • Boiling water – 1-1.5 cups
  • Gel food coloring (optional)
  • Glycerine
  • Vanilla spice sensory salt

Making the Play Dough

The Imagination Tree made it super simple for anyone to create the play dough. Follow their straightforward recipe and you’ll have the perfect base for your spicey apple play dough.

Helpful hint — If you want to add food coloring to your play dough, add it to the hot water.  For my first batch, I added the coloring after I’d mixed up the wet and dry ingredients.  This made it harder to get the color I wanted.  I added the coloring to the water before mixing the wet and dry ingredients for the second batch.  This made it SO much easier for me to add the amount of color I wanted without making much of a mess.

Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

Once I had the basic play dough recipe ready to go and colored the way I wanted it, I added the spices.  I have got to tell you, this is where the simple red play dough was transformed into apple play dough that smelled divine — as if there was apple pie nearby!  When I made this play dough, I didn’t have the spices I wanted (yes, apparently I needed to go grocery shopping).  I turned, instead, to my stash of vanilla spice sensory salt.  The combination of spices, and a “secret” ingredient, helped make this apple pie play dough.  I added about 2 heaping tablespoons to each batch, making sure to remove the whole spices from the sensory salt.

Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

The preschoolers had a BLAST with this playdough!  I put the play dough in our discovery center, along with different lengths of green pipe cleaners.  The kids made different-sized apples and added pipe cleaner “stems” — some even went so far as adding the long stems to the big apples and the small stems to the small apples.  They also made stacks of apples and even apple “snowmen”.  A few created their own versions of apple pies, and still, others just had fun poking the pipe cleaners into the play dough.  While the play dough was out, our classroom smelled like an apple pie bakery (but not overwhelmingly so). Yum!

Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

Have you ever made a spicy version of apple play dough?  Or any other kind of scented play dough?  This one was such a hit that I’m sure we’ll be creating more this year.

Spicy Apple Play Dough for the Sensory Table

Shared at Discover and Explore: Fall

Done-for-You Preschool Resources

Planning meaningful lessons for students week after week while balancing other teaching responsibilities and a personal life can be a daunting task. That’s where Preschool Teacher 101 comes in to save you time!

Preschool Teacher 101 has created some amazing preschool lesson and activity plans perfect for any preschool classroom. Click on the image below to learn more about our full and comprehensive apples lesson plans!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is new-apples-plans.jpg
Apples Lesson Plans

Join The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101 today for exclusive access to our amazing products. And we even have three different membership options to suit your needs! Check out some of our other apple-related products by clicking the images below.

Apple Ten Frame Task Cards
Ten Apples Lesson Plans
5 Little Apples Song Pack & Book Set

Filed Under: Sensory Tagged With: Apples, Fall, play dough

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Comments

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  1. Sugar Aunts says

    September 28, 2013 at 3:30 am

    Love this! We’re featuring your post on Share It Saturday this week over at Sugar Aunts! Thanks for linking up 🙂

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      October 8, 2013 at 7:06 pm

      Yay! Thanks so much for the feature! 🙂

      Reply
  2. Vanessa @Pre-K Pages says

    October 2, 2013 at 6:01 pm

    This looks fantastic!! I use Kool-Aid to color and scent my homemade play dough but I’m going to have to try this recipe. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
    • Mary Catherine says

      October 8, 2013 at 7:07 pm

      So glad you liked it, Vanessa! It really smelled delicious, and the kiddos just loved it. Let me know how it goes if you try it out! 🙂

      Reply
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My name is Mary Catherine, and I love to share meaningful {and fun} learning activities for kiddos! Feel free to browse and stay awhile!

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