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20 Ways to Use Essential Oils in the Classroom

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Essential oils entered my family’s life this past fall.

I immediately noticed positive changes in my sons’ sensory integration-related behavior, my energy level, our moods, and my family’s overall health.

I eventually connected with other parents and teachers in the same boat. All of us have seen positive differences in our homes and classrooms.

I have shared with you a few ways that we use essential oils in our home. To add to those ideas, this post includes ways to use essential oils in the classroom.

Essential Oils in the Classroom

Best Essential Oils for the Classroom

Start by gathering materials such as a diffuser, cotton balls, and glass spray bottles. I also highly recommend the book Modern Essentials as a guide for your essential oils use. Consider downloading the FREE Permission to Use Essential Oils document from Teachers Pay Teachers.*

Create an Herb Garden with Kids

Essential Oil Classroom Ideas

Help the Mood and Energy Level

Oils can improve and help control classroom behavior. Diffuse a variety of oils of your choosing depending on the mood and feel of the room. Consider lavender or Serenity when the energy needs to come down or when you’re heading into a transition.

Cedarwood and Vetiver are two of my favorite calming oils. Citrus Bliss is great for energizing an environment and aiding in nervous tension, Balance when you need to get grounded, and Elevation when you need motivation

Fight Flu Season

Keep the immune system healthy and strong by diffusing On Guard

To Help Work or Free Choice Time

Consider an oil or blend such as InTune that assists in focus and concentration as you enter work time.

Cleaning Surfaces

Place 30 drops of On Guard into a 16 oz glass spray bottle with 1/4 cup vinegar, and 1 3/4 cup water.

Hand Washing

Use On Guard Foaming Hand wash to keep germs at bay. Cinnamon (one of the oils in the On Guard blend) is well known effective hand sanitizer.

Cleaning Glass

Place 1/2 cup vinegar, 1 1/2 cup water, and 8 drops of lemon or wild ginger, or combine into a 16 oz glass spray bottle

essential oils to help with focus

Learning Activities with Essential Oils

  • Sensorial: Place a drop or two of a variety of oils such as cinnamon, lime, lemon, lavender, etc, individually on cotton balls inside a small container for smelling bottles, do a blind smelling work, and have the child match the oils and match the oils with their appropriate plant.
  • Practical Life: Use a dropper in a water transfer Practical Life work, spoon seeds, crush seeds, create scented play dough, and make soap.
  • Life Sciences: Talk about Parts of the Plant and the area of extraction for various familiar plants such as basil, lavender, rose, citrus fruit, fir, and so on depending on your location. Once you’ve introduced the “lesson” at a learning circle, invite the children to do a matching or sorting activity placing the plant (real if you can swing it) in its appropriate category according to the oil. For example, rose under flower, basil under leaf, anise under seed, ginger under root, and birch under bark. I created cards for this work for my sons. 
  • Math: Talk about the weight of plants and how much oil we can extract from various types of plants. For example, 2-5K pounds of rose petals gives us 1 pound of oil, whereas 200 pounds of lavender gives us one pound of oil. Some plants are more generous than other plants. Encourage children to rank order plants based on their oil yield.
  • Physical Science: Talk about the viscosity of oils. Some oils, like lemon, are quite thin compared to a thick oil such as Vetiver.
  • Engineering: Talk about the distillation process. Encourage the children to sequence the process. I have these cards in the works, too. I will share the cards as soon as possible.
Essential Oils in the Classroom

That is a good start for you! I will share more ideas with you soon. In the meantime, if you would like to purchase oils at Wholesale Prices, contact me with questions or simply sign up via my newsletter expressing your interest in oils.

I will send you an email with more information on how to join.

There is no obligation to sell. I can walk you through the process of buying an Enrollment Kit and setting up your account.

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Talk to you soon,
Marnie

* I am certain some readers may have concerns about allergic reactions or restrictions against perfumes in school. I encourage you to please contact me about these concerns.

Again, there is a FREE Permission to Use Essential Oils download on Teachers Pay Teachers that may be of interest.

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