This idea came from our friend Laura and my Art at the Start guinea pigs have been loving it! It’s a really nice way to get super messy with lots of lovely sensory experiences of foamy sloppiness for wee ones but it is still easy to clear up because it’s mostly soap.
You need:
- water based, non-toxic paints (you could also use a drop of food colour but remember it stains if you’re letting wee ones help you mix)
- something soapy – we used washing up liquid here but you’d be better to use your child’s normal bubbly bath as then you know it won’t irritate their skin and will be safe if they lick it
- a blender
Just put a cup of water, a squirt of paint and a squirt of your chosen soap into a blender. Put the lid on and wizz it up. It will grow to fill the jug. Toddlers can help with the measuring and wizzing and will enjoy seeing the mixture instantly go from tiny to massive! With babies you can make it yourself in advance.
Now you can do a few different colours and pour them one at a time into a tray in a rainbow effect. Or you can let your wee one do it and end up with a crazy pattern like we did! You could make up a smaller amount of this foam and put it in a baking tray or shallow dish to play with from a high chair or we put several colours together into an under-bed storage tray to get right in. It is fun mixing the different colours up with your hands although this does often result in it ultimately turning mudgy beige! If you wanted to introduce some learning about colours why not try making just a couple of colours like yellow and red or yellow and blue so wee ones can see what new colour is made when they mix.