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I am happy to have Sara of Happy Brown House sharing with us all today as part of the A-Z's of Sensory Play for Kids series. She is sharing one of my favorite things to use, shaving cream sensory play.
One of my favorite go-to sensory play materials for preschoolers is shaving cream. Little fingers love to squish it and spread it around. Shaving cream has a smell, so this activity involves more than one sense. Most households have shaving cream already in a cabinet, making this a quick and easy activity to set up with zero prep time. Best of all, it's relatively easy to clean up!
Like most three-year-olds, my son is an active little guy with a short attention span. When I need to engage him in an activity that will keep him busy for longer than normal, I pull out shaving cream.
Manipulating shaving cream by itself is a fun activity–spreading it, squishing it through fingers, and trying to clean off the globs from his hands keeps my son busy for quite a while.
After he's had time for free play, I encourage my son to practice “writing” with his finger. He's taken great interest in practicing his name lately, so he tried writing that with surprising success for a 3 year old! (His name is Asher if you need a little help making sense of his letters below.)
After writing his name, I encouraged him to “erase” by spreading the shaving cream around and asked him to write some more. He chose a variety of letters and shapes. This is a great pre-writing activity for little hands still strengthening their fine motor skills.
When he was bored with writing letters, he chose a car to drive through the shaving cream “snow”. He enjoyed making tire tracks with his favorite red fire truck. In just a few minutes, he was ready to wash his hands and move to another activity.
Tip: For easy clean-up, I usually have my son play shaving cream on a baking sheet or plastic tray. When he's finished, I can rinse off the shaving cream in the sink and move on to the next thing in a matter of seconds.
Want more fun activities for little hands that promote fine motor skills development? Check out this blog post.
Developing Fine Motor Skills Series
Sara is a former teacher turned homeschool mom to two active boys. She loves to share hands-on learning activities on her blog, Happy Brown House. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
For more sensory play ideas, follow along in the A-Z's of Sensory Play for Kids series.
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