Preschool Project: Shaving Cream Play / Playing with Clouds

Here’s a great activity to do when mischief is born out of boredom or a grumpy disposition threatens to ignite a tantrum.

I’ve also used it in my preschool classroom.  Tactile activities like this are great for development and tons of fun!  Yes, it requires plenty of towels on hand for cleanup.  But it’s great for rainy days and rambunctious kids.

Preschool Project of the Week: Shaving Cream Play
Preschool Skills: tactile awareness, developing ‘descriptive’ words, fine motor skills, FUN!

All you need is a can of shaving cream (I bought a can for $1 at the Dollar Tree) and an appropriate surface (at school I have laminate top tables and at home we did it on the patio table out back.)   If you don’t have a table to do it on, you can always use a shallow pan or tub.

I squirt big, fluffy clumps of shaving cream in front of the kids and that’s it.  You let their imaginations take it from there.  It’s always fun to watch – some kids jump right in and others are more cautious.

These are the rules we use:

(1) No rubbing shaving cream on our faces
(2) No touching anyone else with shaving cream on your hands

These rules keep the kids from getting it in their eyes.

Preschool Education Applications:

1. Come up with words to describe how the shaving cream feels.  Soft, fluffy, puffy, light, squishy, etc.  The more descriptive words you teach them when they are young, the better!
2. Spread shaving cream out and use your fingers to write or draw in it.  When your done, spread it out again and start over!
3. I also sometimes call this “playing with clouds” because it’s an activity I  like to use when we are studying our “Weather” unit.  So be sure to observe the clouds outside (bonus points if you can DO the activity outside) and see if you can form your own clouds that look like the ones you see in the sky.

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