Occupational Therapy

Peppermint Play Dough

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

by Colleen Beck OTR/L
December 7, 2012

This peppermint play dough recipe is a fun sensory activity for the holiday season. We love to use this scented play dough in Christmas occupational therapy activities. It’s a great activity to use along with our candy cane puzzles and our candy cane moon dough!

It’s a great Christmas fine motor activity, can even be a Christmas sensory activity for this time of year.

Day 10 of 25 Days of Christmas Play

Peppermint Play Dough

This was super easy to make, considering we used the Scented Snowman Play Dough that we already had in the house…I do have to say though, that since somebody (cough, Little Guy, cough) put the bag of Dough into the freezer…it was a liiiitle dry after thawing out. Not too badly, though…nothing a tablespoon of vegetable oil didn’t fix!

I split the dough into halves and made a little well with my finger in one of the halves. After putting some red food dye in, and mixing up a bit, it started to look pretty neat!

A tip: Use a plastic shopping bag to mix the food coloring in. Unless you want reeeeally red hands!

Getting there:

Getting closer:

This is how I had it set up for the kids this morning. They were so excited to play with the Peppermint Dough! Oh, and also, mixing the dough around so much makes the scent pretty much non-existent. The scent just gets mixed in the more it is used. I do think it would be pretty cool to add some peppermint extract to this for an added sensory experience!

It has been so much fun coming up with fun play ideas and sharing them with our readers. We are truly having a blast with this! Thank you, readers, for all of your kind words and encouragement with this blog that has so far, been really fun and rewarding to do. We love knowing that our ideas have inspired you!

Looking for done-for you therapy activities this holiday season?

This print-and-go Christmas Therapy Kit includes no-prep, fine motor, gross motor, self-regulation, visual perceptual activities…and much more… to help kids develop functional grasp, dexterity, strength, and endurance. Use fun, Christmas-themed, motor activities so you can help children develop the skills they need.

This 100 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. You’ll find Christmas-themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more.

Click here to grab the Christmas Therapy Kit.

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.