Having a baby and a preschooler in the house presents no shortage of germs. It seems like one of us gets sick and then within a week or so, whatever cold or virus that was brought home is shared with the rest of the family. Add in cold weather on top of the sickness and we have a recipe for sticking inside. Whether we like it or not, temps in the single digits or below plus runny noses means we are playing indoors.
Staying inside means we need to come up with create things to keep us from all bouncing off the walls. Usually this means I don’t want to load everyone up into the car, but instead try to create something with items we already have in our house. Luckily it doesn’t take much to keep my boys happy.
Sticking with the theme of Frozen this week, we have put together a super simple activity. It’s a little messy, but as my four-year old says, a lot of fun! Without further ado, here is Disney’s Frozen-Inspired Shaving Cream Extravaganza!
Supplies
Shaving Cream (White Foam Style)
Plastic Wrap
Scotch Tape
Blue Food Coloring
Toothpicks
Small Car or Truck
1. Step One
Firsts things first, before you even gather up all your supplies, you need to turn on some Frozen music. Trust me, it adds a nice element to this little preschool activity. After the music is on, gather up all your supplies. If you are doing this project on an old table, you won’t need the plastic wrap. It’s there to add an element of protect to your table. This is especially important if you are completing step 5.
2. Step Two
Lay out the plastic wrap, two or three strips to cover the surface of your table. Then tape down the edges so it doesn’t pull up. Any type of tape will work here, just make sure it is compatible with the surface of your table. You don’t want to pull off some of the table’s finish while you are trying to project it. Scotch tape did the trick for us.
3. Step Three
Squirt out your shaving cream. As you can see, we got a little fancy and wrote out the word ‘Frozen’. You can be as creative as you want, making a shaving cream snowflake or, perhaps, even Olaf!
4. Step Four
Have your preschooler roll up his or her sleeves and get messy. Your preschooler can use his hands and arms to spread the shaving cream out over the top of the table. The goal is to get the shaving cream spread to cover a large area. By doing so you create a ‘creating’ surface for step five.
5. Step Five
Step five involves having a grown-up take the food coloring and very carefully squirting a drop or two onto the shaving cream. Put a few drops in a few separate places.
6. Step Six
Pick up those toothpicks you gathered in Step 1 and get creating. Using the toothpicks, spread the food coloring to make different designs or snowflakes. You can always add more food coloring drops to expand the creativity of your design. It’s almost like Elsa dropped in to sprinkle a little winter magic into your project!!
7. Step Seven
If step 6 isn’t a hit with your little one, move onto Step 7! My four-year old wasn’t as impressed with the food coloring snowflake designs as I was. (Which, side note, must mean this is really an adult activity instead of a kid activity.)To bring him back to the excitement of the project, we pulled out some monster trucks!
You’ve probably already guessed this, but in case you didn’t, we drove the monster trucks through the shaving cream. It was actually really cool as the monster trucks drove through clumps of shaving cream and created tire tracks due to the blue food coloring. Plus, after a while, the shaving cream all became completely blue! It was as though Elsa was driving the monster truck and casting her icy spell!
8. Step Eight
If you put down plastic wrap, step 8 is super easy! Just grab the edges of your plastic wrap and fold everything up. The rest is pretty easily cleaned up with a few wet rags.
Extra notes
Playing with shaving cream is a great sensory experience. What can you do if you are trying to bring more sensory experiences into your little one’s life, but know they might not be willing to jump in with both hands to this project?
First, you can add in a pair of gloves! The gloves can be latex gloves which will keep your little one’s hands nice and dry. Or you can use a pair of thin winter gloves. The winter gloves have the advantage of soaking up a little of the shaving cream. This creates a little sensory experience for your little one.
Second, you could leave out the steps that involve food coloring. The food coloring can cause some temporary staining to your little one’s hands which might make them uncomfortable. Driving cars through the shaving cream might still be welcomed though! It’s hard to resist that activity!
There ya go, a Disney’s Frozen-Inspired Shaving Cream Extravaganza project! Whether you make the modifications listed in the extra notes or not, get ready to bring a little ‘Frozen’ sensory fun into your little one’s day! The best part of this project is set up, play time and clean-up can all be limited to a half hour. Or you can let it last an hour if it is keeping your kiddo occupied!
Be Sure to Pin the Above Image and Follow Me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest: @magicformiles