In kindergarten, we love sensory play for kids. Each day in class during our center time we make sure to include at least one sensory bin, table or activity. Regardless of the contents of the bin, these centers are always the most popular. Kids love to learn and play with these hands-on items.
My kids really enjoyed cooking and baking, so I wanted to create a sensory play experience to mimic the skills when cake decorating. Shaving cream was perfect!
This sensory play for kids is great to try in the classroom, at home and would make a little ones birthday extra special at the end of the day for bath time.
When creating sensory play, the materials you use don’t have to be perfect or expensive. Each new experience provides children with a new learning opportunity.
As with any activity with children, make sure to watch children as they play and create. The cakes and cupcakes are not edible, because of the use of shaving cream. Make sure that the children doing the activity are old enough to not eat or taste the shaving cream.
Sensory Play Materials
You can create this sensory play for kids at home or at school. At school you can use a large bin, or a water table in the classroom. It can get a bit messy!
At home, this activity is a great bath time experience!
For this sensory play for kids, you will need:
- Shaving Cream
- Food Coloring
- Icing Bags (Or sealable plastic bags)
- Beads
- Optional: Bowl, cupcake liners, measuring cups, other baking supplies.
Once you have your shaving cream, in a large bowl, fill the bowl with the cream and add food coloring to make the color(s) you want. Once mixed, spoon the shaving cream into a plastic bag.
Setting Up Your Activity
To prepare, you can cover an upside down bowl with white shaving cream.
You can also fill a few cupcake liners with the shaving cream for little treats for kids to decorate.
If you are doing the sensory play at home or in a water table, you can add a bit of food coloring and bubbles to the water.
Since my kids were excited to pretend to be bakers/chefs and decorate the cake and cupcakes, I wrote “Welcome chefs” on the side of the bath.
The rest of the activity is up to the kids! They can use the materials in whatever way they want.
Sensory Play at Home
For kids who love to bake, this is a fun way for them to experience cake decorating in a whole new way. The shaving cream moves, sticks and squeezes out of the bag differently than actual icing does. Which is great for children to notice and feel.
My kids loved creating cupcakes with the icing and used the beads like sprinkles. They looked almost good enough to eat!
This easy sensory play can lead to hours of fun! The shaving cream is also a lot less expensive for children to experiment with then actual icing and it washes up a lot faster!
If you are doing this sensory play for kids in kindergarten or in the classroom, I would suggest using smaller bags for the shaving cream icing. Each child can decorate and play using one bag. Otherwise, you may go through your bags very quickly.
I hope you enjoy this sensory play activity and your little ones have a blast with it!
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