Scented Play Dough - Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds

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We love to use scented play dough with our toddlers and preschoolers, but we thought it would be even more fun to let them make it themselves! We put some of the play dough ingredients into a sensory bin and let them mix it all up. They loved using chalk to tint the salt (fine motor development), scooping and pouring over and over again. Then we turned it into lavender scented play dough for even more fine motor fun!

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What you will need to put into the sensory bin:

Table salt
Purple chalk
Lavender plant pieces
Funnels
Scoops

Place all the items in a sensory bin or some sort of container. Since this has salt, supervision is required to make sure children do not ingest it.

Invite the children to explore the salt mixture. Give them plenty of time to scoop and pour and drag the purple chalk through the salt, tinting the salt purple.

We kept this in the sensory bin for the entire week so that both our 2s class and our 3s class could enjoy it.

Making the lavender scented play dough:

This is our favorite play dough recipe, but we double this since we have 10-16 children.

2 cups flour
1 cup salt (for this particularly activity, you will use the salt you mixed with the chalk)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 cups cold water
Food coloring

No cook version:

Place the dry ingredients in a bowl. Boil the water and add it to the dry mixture and stir.

Stovetop version:

Place the water in a pot and bring it to a boil and then add the rest of the ingredients. Cook until the dough thickens and separates from the sides of the pot.

For both versions:

Place the dough on a flat surface and knead with a bit more flour until it is no longer sticky. Place in an airtight container.

Playing with the scented play dough:

This play dough has the best aroma ever, and it is so calming! Whenever any adult came into our classroom, they were amazed at how wonderful the aroma made them feel. We placed ours on our play dough table with some wooden tools.