Want to add a little spice to preschool play time? Try making this super easy pumpkin spice play dough recipe with your kids. It’s a perfect fall activity and will leave your hands smelling wonderful!

We’ve been busy around here working our way through our fall family bucket list. Last night we carved pumpkins and made homemade root beer. The boys loved it, and I was cracking up at Little Man’s cackles as he watched the bubbling pot of root beer as the dry ice did its work. We may have ended up with a little spit in our soda from the boys taking turns blowing the “smoke” away, but it was worth it.

Before we got to actually carving pumpkins, though, we did some practice with play dough. I had seen this fun pumpkin invitation to play from I Heart Crafty Things the day before, and thought it would be fun to recreate something like that for my own boys.

I tweaked my favorite homemade play dough recipe by adding some pumpkin pie inspired spices and colored it orange. I love this recipe because it’s super quick, I have everything on hand, and it’s not fussy at all. You just dump everything in a pot and cook till it makes a ball. That’s it! (See recipe below.) My boys helped me measure all the ingredients and watched while I cooked it up.

Want to make some of your own? Here’s what you need:

Pumpkin Spice Play Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 Tablespoon oil
• ground spices (I used 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. cloves)
• food coloring (I used 1 drop of red and about 10 drops of yellow)

Directions:

1. Dump all ingredients in a pot. Order doesn’t matter (yay!).
2. Stir everything together until it’s mostly uniform.
3. Turn stove on to medium heat, and stir constantly until the dough begins to solidify and form a ball in the middle of the pot.
4. Carefully (it’ll be hot), remove the play dough to a cutting board (or I just slapped it down on my granite counter top). Knead until smooth and cool enough for little hands to touch.
5. Play away!

We loved how this play dough made our hands smell as we played with it. I offered the boys cookie cutters to use, and also suggested they could make a pumpkin ball to decorate. I gave them plastic kid knives to “carve” with, and they thought it was great that they got to “cut.” Little Brother went a little horror-movie-villain on his pumpkin…but, well, he’s two. What do you expect?

All in all, it was a great fall activity, and I’m looking forward to getting it out again for more yummy-smelling fun.

Have you ever made homemade play dough? What’s your fave recipe?

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