Smell of Sukkot Playdough Experience

Last year we had so much fun bringing the smells of Sukkot to life with a fun sensory activity of Smell of Sukkot Playdough Experience! We will definitely be doing this activity again this year.

What You’ll Need

Your favorite homemade playdough recipe and ingredients (or a neutral smelling store bought playdough). Check out the recipes we used below!
Sukkot scent mix-ins. We used lemon, leaves, ground cinnamon, and curry powder
Yellow food coloring (optional)
Green food coloring (optional)

Putting It Together

Make your favorite playdough recipe or bring out your store bought one.
Divide the playdough into four parts.
In the first part, mix in lemon zest, a little lemon juice and yellow food coloring.
In the second part, mix in scented leaves and green food coloring.
In the third part, mix in ground cinnamon.
In the fourth part, mix in curry powder.
Invite your child to explore the different scented playdough.

Finished & Loving It!

We LOVE playdough in our house and make it all the time. It was so much fun to put a Sukkot-spin on this activity. Using scented playdough really enhances this sensory experience. Not only are the kids enjoying using their hands and touch sense but also their sense of smell. Playdough is also so great for strengthening little hands and for creativity and imaginary play.

I made one part lemon playdough. I really love the smell of the etrog—it symbolizes the freshness of the new year and just has a really special connection to Sukkot for me. Of course lemon juice is not the same but the citrusy scent makes me think of the etrog. Maybe we should plant an etrog tree … 🤔

For another part I used cinnamon which is a very fall smell to me. It makes me think of applesauce and apple cake, which we eat around this holiday season. It also makes me think of cozy fall nights, which Sukkot seems to kick off (🤞 because it’s still hot around here). I love that it turns the playdough brown because I also wanted to invite my kids to create their own sukkot with these playdough options and the brown color of course makes a good base!

Another part I dyed green and added some leaves. I wanted to think of the fresh smell of leaves and see the green branches for the sukkah roof. Any strong smelling leaves that you have in your garden could work!

For the last part I added curry powder. Say what?! I know many people would grab that pumpkin pie spice but true confession … I don’t like pumpkin pie 😬 Sorry for all the lovers out there! My family eats a lot of curry and we’ve eaten our fair share of curry in the sukkah so I loved that idea of cozy, warm food eaten together. Yum!

Obviously whatever scents that make YOU think of Sukkot would work absolutely perfectly here and be the best Smell of Sukkot Playdough Experience!

I invited the kids over and asked them to smell the different playdoughs and guess the scent. We talked about what these smells meant to us, especially in the context of Sukkot. And then I invited them to play play play! My daughter was very excited to make a sukkah (it’s so cute!) while my son really enjoyed sniffing and squishing.