Peppermint Moon Dough Recipe (2024)

Have you ever played with moon sand, or moon dough? This moon dough recipe is an old post here on The OT Toolbox, and one that we loved looking back at. Have you made your ownmoon dough? This stuff is seriously messy and majorly fun! We made our Peppermint Moon Dough recipe a little different than the usual moon dough recipe that is out there.This moon dough recipe is very soft and fun even for moms to play with! It’s a great companion to our peppermint play dough recipe from years ago, too.

Moon Dough Recipe

We started with what we had on hand. When it comes to kid-related messy play and making these sensory play activities, we love to use something that otherwise would be thrown away. Likewise, waste in these activities is not something we are big fans of. So, when ever possible, we’ll re-use sensory play materials for other activities and save things like dyed pasta and rice for future sensory activities.

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This moon dough recipe used something that would otherwise be headed to the trash bin…I had some scentedlotionthat I had for a while…I really didn’t care for the scent. That and some corns starch were all that were needed to make the base ofour moon dough!

Moon Dough Ingredients

There are only four ingredients in this easy moon dough recipe. You could even omit the food coloring and make this a 3 ingredient moon dough recipe!

• Lotion (scented or unscented)
• corn starch
• peppermint scent
• red food coloring gel (optional)

To make the consistency of moon dough, use a 4:1 ratio of corn starch to lotion. This will make a nice and fluffy, but moldable moon dough.

We added a few drops of peppermint extract and some red food coloring. We used the gel type of food coloring, but only because that is all we had on hand. I’m sure liquid food coloring would work just as well, although with the added liquid of scent and food coloring, a little extra corn starch might be needed.

Also to note when making your moon dough recipe is that different brands of lotion may effect this recipe. As you mix the ingredients together,you many need to use more or less corn starch depending on the consistency.

Half of the moon dough, I kept plain white and the other half got the red food coloring for a very candy cane look. Add a few little bowls and spoons for scooping, and a couple of Candy Cane cookie cutters, and we were ready to play!

We all got busy scooping, fluffing, and mixing. This was such a fun sensory play experience (for mom, too!) The lotion made this dough very soft and with the peppermint scent, you could no longer smell the lotion’s scent.

Baby Girl (age 2) especially loved to scoop the moon dough. She used the spoons and filled one cup after another. And what great fine motor skills this was for her! She liked to mix the red and the white colors together, dump it all out, and start scooping again! Here is information on the developmental benefits of scooping and pouring with toddlers.

We played right on the hard wood floor of our dining room for an easy clean up. Any stray moon dough bits were easy to broom right up.

Little Guy’s favorite part was making the candy cane molds. We packed the moon dough into the cookie cutters and then pulled it up. The moon dough would hold it’s shapeof the candy cane. There were a bunch of little moon dough candy canes before we finished!

The scent of peppermint candy canes filled the room! We had so much fun playing with this moon dough!

When we were finished playing, I poured all of the moon dough into a storage bad and saved it to make a new play activity. We’ll be using it again, soon!

Have you made moon dough? How about candy cane scented moon dough?

Looking for more fun candy cane scented sensory play?

More Christmas sensory ideas

You’ll find more Christmas sensory activities here, but be sure to try some of these sensory dough materials this holiday season.

Christmas Modified Paper Pack

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.