Homemade Apple Playdough for Fun Fall Sensory Play

To make apple cinnamon playdough, you’ll need:

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How to Make Apple Playdough and Fall Sensory Play Activities – DIY Instructions

Make the apple playdough.

Mix the flour, salt, and cream of tartar in a big pot. Add the water, spices or flavoring, and oil. Heat on medium, stirring until the mixture thickens and forms a ball. Take off the heat and lay your playdough on wax paper to cool.

Note: To make this taste safe, make sure the water is boiling when you pour into dry ingredients.

Once cool, knead until it’s smooth. I split our dough into two parts, leaving one its natural color, and adding red food coloring to the other.

I typically wear a pair of latex gloves to mix in the food coloring, but you can also put your dough in a plastic bag and let kids knead the bag to work the color in. Start with 10-20 drops of food coloring, adding more as you go for a brighter color. For our bold candy apple red, I probably used about 40-50 drops altogether (maybe about a quarter of the bottle?).

Encourage kids to knead, roll, stamp, and cut their playdough.

Lay out a small selection of kid-sized and kid-safe kitchen tools like a rolling pin, cookie cutters, a cutting wedge or spatula, and stamps so they can mold, cut, roll, and add fun textures to their playdough.

You don’t have to have fancy stamps or rollers to create cool textures. To create a fun grid pattern on our playdough, we rolled up a piece of corrugated cardboard (secured with hot glue) and then rolled it over the playdough, top to bottom, and side to side. It’s so simple, but becomes a great tool for experimentation!

Incorporate other autumn dry ingredients into your play.

We added cinnamon sticks and oats to create our apple pie playdough invitation.

Make playdough apple pies!

Invite kids to whip up a batch of playdough apple pies! I have lots of ideas down below…

Playdough Apple Pie Play Ideas

• Miniature Apple Pie Bakery: Encourage kids to set up a pretend bakery where they mold mini apple pies, tarts, or crisps using playdough, complete with oat or playdough crumble toppings.
• Texture Exploration with Spices: Instead of adding spices while mixing up the playdough, provide small amounts of various spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in jars with plastic sifter caps. Let kids sprinkle and mix these into the playdough for enhanced sensory exploration.
• Pie Crust Rolling: With rolling pins and flat surfaces, little ones can practice rolling out “pie crusts”, refining their fine motor skills.
• Lattice Top Pies: Challenge kids to create a woven lattice top for their pies using thin playdough strips, helping them develop dexterity.
• Fill & Slice Activity: Create a large playdough pie, let it “bake”, then practice slicing it into pieces using play or plastic knives, teaching portioning and sharing.
• Apple Orchard to Pie: Begin with molding apples, then “pick” them and transform them into pie fillings, teaching the farm-to-table concept in a fun way.
• Pie Shop Role Play: Allow children to take on roles like baker, cashier, and customer. They can “sell” and “buy” pies, giving them a chance to work on social skills with a side of basic math.
• Scented Apple Pie Playdough Sensory Bins: Blend apple pie playdough with other fall items like dried leaves, acorns, and cinnamon sticks in a sensory bin.
• Lay Out Toppings Galore: Provide pom-poms beads, buttons, or old cake-decorating supplies to represent pie toppings or fillings, letting kids decorate pies with their unique styles.
• Provide Apple Pie Playdough Recipe Cards: Create pretend recipe cards with images and sequences, prompting children to follow the “recipe” and make their version of the apple pie (a great way to work on sequential thinking!).

20 Fall-Themed Apple Playdough Play Tools and Supplies

Half the fun of this type of playdough sensory play comes with the incorporation of *other* textures and scents. Here are 20 fall-themed supplies to spark creativity when playing with homemade oatmeal apple playdough:

SAFETY NOTE: If you’re working with children under the age of four or any child who may be tempted to put objects in their mouth, all loose parts should be at least 2 inches in length or diameter. Small parts and play accessories should meet federal small parts standards.

1. Leaves: Collect vibrant fall leaves to make impressions in the playdough or as scenery in playdough landscape “drawings”.
2. Pinecones: These can be used for texture-making or as mini trees in a forest setting.
3. Acorns: Perfect for counting games, creating patterns, or as pretend “ingredients” in a play kitchen.
4. Twigs: Sticks and twigs make great apple stems, are an easy substitute for cinnamon sticks, or can be used as makeshift playdough tools.
5. Pumpkin Seeds: Great for counting, making playdough apple faces, or as pretend playdough pie toppings.
6. Cinnamon Sticks: Apart from using them as a scent enhancer, they can be used as pillars, logs, or stirring sticks in pretend cooking.
7. Dried Corn Kernels: Use for counting games, textures, or as pretend food.
8. Felt: Available in autumn colors to craft playdough placemats, clothing for playdough figures, or as background scenery.
9. Raffia: Raffia mimics hay and can be used in playdough autumn scenes or as a decorative element.
10. Fabric Scraps: In autumn hues, these can be used to wrap up playdough surprises, used as clothing for playdough creations, and more.
11. Buttons: In browns, oranges, and yellows, buttons can be eyes for playdough creatures, adornments, or even pretend coins for a playdough pie bakery.
12. Ribbons: Ideal for wrapping pretend apple pie playdough “treats” or pressing into apple playdough to create designs.
13. Miniature Pumpkins: Decorate pumpkins with your apple playdough, or use them as accessories for a dramatic play orchard, pumpkin patch, or fall farm market.
14. Nutmeg and Cloves: Enhance the playdough’s scent, or use them to create patterns in the playdough.
15. Cookie Cutters: You can use shapes like leaves, turkeys, or pumpkins to shape the playdough, or make playdough cookies or pie toppings with circles and other simple cutouts.
16. Rolling Pins: Embellish with rubber bands or string for fun textured effects on rolled-out playdough.
17. Burlap: Burlap provides a rustic texture when pressed against the playdough, and a play placemat that fits the autumn ambiance.
18. Mesh Produce Bags: Pressing these onto playdough can create interesting textures (and is an easy way to recycle them!).
19. Wood Slices: Serve as bases for playdough sculptures, or as “plates” in a pretend pie setup.
20. Orange Peel: Orange peels (freshly peeled or dried) can be used to create unique textures in the playdough or as a pretend garnish in culinary playdough play.

10 More Ways For Kids to Play With Apple Playdough This Fall

Letting kids explore, imagine, and create with these simple materials can provide hours of fun and help them engage with the spirit of the season. Although there are endless ways to incorporate apple themes into your fall playdough play, here are a few ideas to get you started…

1. Fallen Leaf Impressions in Playdough

Flatten out the apple playdough and press oats onto its surface to create leaf vein impressions. Then, cut out leaf shapes, taking note of the intricate designs and unique patterns.

2. Playdough Apple Picking

Mold the playdough into small apple shapes and sprinkle oats around as the ground or pathway. Kids can then “pick” apples using a pair of tongs or tweezers and place them in small bowls for a great fall fine motor skill activity.

3. Autumn Playdough Oatmeal Cookie Shop

Kids can roll out playdough “cookies” and sprinkle oats on top as decoration, setting up a pretend cookie shop and “sell” their creations.

4. Small World Farm Animal Feeding

Encourage kids to make playdough farm animals like horses or chickens. They can roll tiny apples out of the playdough, fill a cardboard or plastic cap trough with oats, and use other dry ingredients or provided supplies as pretend food to feed playdough animals.

5. A Fall Playdough Treasure Hunt

Hide autumn treasures inside big balls of playdough. Kids must then dig through the oats and playdough to find and extract the treasures.

6. Playdough Fall Sensory Exploration

Create a sensory bin by mixing oats and small balls of apple playdough. Add cardboard tubs, spoons, measuring cups, and other supplies kids can use for pouring and mixing. Little ones can enjoy the feel of the materials and discovering the playdough “apples” among the oats.

7. Fall Playdough Orchard Landscapes

Encourage kids to craft autumn scenes with their playdoughs. They can use the playdough for apple trees and hills, while the oats can represent paths, farmland, etc.

8. Apple Playdough Faces

Kids can make flat circles from the playdough and use oats, cinnamon sticks, and other supplies to design facial features, creating quirky expressions filled with personality.

9. Storytelling

Use the apple playdough, oats, and other supplies to craft characters and props, and then encourage kids to create and narrate their own autumn-themed stories. Maybe there’s a tale about an apple that came to life, or an oat that lived in Apple-pie-opolis…

10. Autumn Apple Playdough Mats

Draw an outline of an apple, print our apple templates, or invite kids to form an apple shape out of their playdough, then decorate.

More Fall Apple Crafts and Activities

• Apple-themed fine motor ideas
• DIY apple cider spice bags
• Homemade peach applesauce or baked apple chips
• Fall apple stamp art
• Paper-mache apples

More Fall Playdough Ideas

Playdough is such a classic sensory tool, and so easy to modify for seasonal play. For autumn-themed playdough variations on this activity, try our pumpkin spice playdough, playdough donuts, or create a simple nature playdough invitation with paper straws and colorful fall leaves!