EASY Homemade Playdough with Essential Oils (No Cooking)

This post was updated on 5/11/2019

When I made a recent batch of EASY Homemade Playdough for a Backyard Volcano project and to keep my younger children entertained while I homeschooled the older, my three year old complained “It stinks!” So when I went to make a batch of play dough for regular play time I decided to add essential oils-a little trick discovered back in 2008! I know what you are thinking. Aren’t there a dozen essential oil play dough recipes out there? Yes. There are probably more then that!

One of the advantages to THIS play dough recipe though is that it’s a no cook version. I’ll admit, the smoothness of the cooked playdough is nice. But it is difficult to make, especially if you are making it for a bunch of little kids like I do-or if you are making a huge batch for a project like Volcano’s. If you are making enough for volcanoes it’s almost impossible to stir the kind you cook because it gets so thick and goopy and heavy to stir.

The kids could not tell a difference between this recipe and the cooked kind-so since they didn’t complain I call that a win. By the way, this playdough lasts for weeks with all the salt that is in it! Also you can use boiling water which will pretty much give you the same results as cooked playdough.

Easy Homemade Playdough

• 7 cups flour
• 4 cups salt
• 2 tablespoons cream of tarter
• 3/4 cup oil
• 5 cups hot water (I heated mine in the microwave)
• Additional water for coloring

First, mix the dry ingredients and then add the wet and mix. Once it is well mixed divide it into 12 portions that are approximately 1 cup each.

To each portion I mixed in;

• 5 drops of essential oil- we used orange, peppermint, or lavender or a citrus blend we love
• approximately 4 drops of food coloring-you can play around with this to create pastels or bolder colors
• 1 Tablespoon of water (this helped the colors mix evenly)

Oh, and I used my KitchenAid for all the mixing! When I make this recipe for a modeling project or for something like volcanoes I omit the essential oils (only cuz I get the expensive kind and feel like using the eo playdough in volcanoes is a bit of a waste, lol)!

Here are some pictures of the process;

My younger children play with this playdough for hours at a time. We love collecting cookie cutters, rolling pins, toy utensils (and real ones) for their playdough play time. I love that when they are playing with playdough they are happy and so quiet so it gives me an opportunity to homeschool the older children peacefully! Here are some affiliate links to some fun playdough tools.

Are you planning your next homeschool year or next semester? Be sure to read my post 25 Tips For How To Plan A Homeschool Year. And are you going to be schooling with a new baby or toddler? Be sure to read my post, How To Homeschool With A Baby

View all my HOMESCHOOLING POSTS HERE.

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