Shaving Cream Fun

What better on a cold, snowy day then to have a super messy, super fun shaving cream sensory experience on the art table. 

It's even more fun when you add the primary colours of paint to it and experiment with colour mixing. 

Shaving Cream Building

Adding shaving cream to foam blocks is a great sensory experience that encourages children to explore. Children notice that the cream can be used as a mortar to hold the blocks together in interesting ways. 

Shaving Cream Building

We put out two materials on the table today and were curious to see what the children would do. Shaving cream and blocks are an unlikely combination but 'oh so' exciting!

Although this can be a messy activity, the  shaving cream easily washes from skin and clothing. The children generated many hypotheses for why they thought the blocks stuck together so well with the shaving cream. 

This is a fun activity for your child to do in the tub at bath time if they enjoyed it at school and are eager to try it again!

Marble Effect Hearts

We created some very pretty marble effect hearts to string across our front entrance! They are so easy to do!

To start, smear a layer of shaving cream on a flat tray.

Drop a good amount of food colouring all over the shaving cream. We decided we wanted a rainbow effect so we dropped the colours in the order of the spectrum.

Use a fine tool like a toothpick to swirl the colours into one another - the more you swirl the more of a marble effect you will create!

Once you have the effect you like, gently press a piece of paper and smooth it over the coloured shaving cream.



This is the paper after it has been lifted from the tray - it is beautiful in itself!

 

Use a hard, straight edge to smooth the excess shaving cream off the paper. We used a hard piece of cardboard. 

The effect of the stained paper is simply beautiful!

 We created a number of marble papers and cut them into hearts, which we strung across our front entrance! Beautiful!

Tub Painting

Such a fun and easy way to encourage creative exploration and play during bath time that is super easy to clean too!

We used a plastic veggie tray for our palate.

The kids helped me to squirt a bit of shaving cream in each section.

Using a few drops of food colouring, they chose different colour combinations to try.

We used paint brushes to stir the colours and shaving cream together to see what colours were created.

The tray actually floated on the water!

They had lots of fun painting all over themselves and the walls of the tub. (You might want to do a spot check the first time you paint to make sure the colour doesn't stain your tiles or grout.)

We used thick paint brushes this time but we've also tried other art tools like sponges.

Super easy to clean when done...just rinse the walls and tub with warm water. It smells great too!

This is easily modified for the classroom where children can paint in a half-filled water table, tiled wall and sink area, or the clear lid of a tactile table!

Messy Monster Muck!

I first heard of this monster inspired sensory bin from No Time for Flash Cards and thought we'd give it a try. It only requires four simple materials that we already had in the house.

First, squirt a lot of shaving cream into a bin. 

Next, sprinkle a good size amount of cornstarch into the shaving cream and mix well. Depending on your desired consistency, you may have to add lots. We used an entire box of cornstarch between two bins. Mixing it takes some time and patience and may require a helping hand depending on the age of the children.

We used the suggested materials of googley eyes and pipe cleaners, but you might consider adding other fun stuff like pony beads, feathers, and sequins.

When added to the bin, these materials add another dimension of sensory fun. My three year old was happy just to explore the materials - squishing and squashing the muck through his hands.

The shaving cream/cornstarch mixture is mouldable and my daughter was eager to begin creating little creatures with the materials.

This was a very messy activity but it was easily cleaned as the mixture turns into a powder when dried. I just vacuumed it up!

Shaving Cream and Powder Paint

Sensory experiences are important for children. They encourage them to explore, experiment, and use their senses to learn new things. Yesterday we encouraged children to explore shaving cream and powdered blue paint on the light table!