Fizzy Shaving Cream Sand Dough

 

For this Fizzy Shaving Cream Sand Dough activity, E pretty much just mixed all of her favorite sensory materials together in the water table – and beyond the pure joy of the sensory activity, it led to some seriously extended pretend play revolving around cooking and catering a huge party at school 🙂

E just took over and did her own thing, adding the items she needed in her imaginary world, and it was pretty fun and awesome to watch!

 

(E was 4 years and 3 months old.)

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Materials for Fizzy Shaving Cream Sand Dough:

• Shaving cream.
• Wet play sand.
• Baking soda.
• Vinegar.
• Powder tempera (optional).
• Water table (optional).
• Cooking utensils (optional).

 

E put it all together the way she wanted.

She started by putting moist sand {just some sand from her sandbox that had somehow ended up sitting out in a box in the rain for a while} into both compartments of the water table and adding little piles of shaving cream in different spots.

She used a spoon to sprinkle powder tempera in three different colors on top, then started stirring.

 

 

When she thought the materials had mixed sufficiently, she added spoonfuls of baking soda and got out the squeeze bottle full of vinegar.

 

 

With more stirring and a lot more vinegar, the materials became satisfyingly slushy and mixed together to make kind of a runny dough consistency.

The shaving cream sand dough in the bottom part, where E had used red powder tempera, turned nice and reddish, but the yellow and orange in the top compartment disappeared while mixing.

 

 

E didn’t mind one bit – she was cooking for the big party, after all!

 

 

She got her table and chairs pulled up to the water table and used paper plates to set the table for all her guests.

 

 

After a while, the venue seemed to change, and she needed to pack up all her dishes and transport them to the new party place.

 

 

She even scraped the stuff on the paper plates back into the water table 🙂

 

 

At the new venue, E found new ways of serving her shaving cream sand dough creations, adding more shaving cream here and there.

 

 

 

She played for almost 2 hours that day – with the right activity, she can definitely have a lot of stamina but she’d never before stuck to one for more than an hour without a break!

 

 

And she played again for a while the next day, continuing to make food for a party, even though the shaving cream was long gone, and she didn’t have any vinegar left!

 

What are your favorite sensory materials? Have you tried combining shaving cream and sand? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear all about it!

 

 

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