Shaving foam; an innocuous member of most household bathroom cabinets. But it’s well known in Early Years that shaving foam provides hours of learning opportunities if given with the right prompts and modelled by a seasoned practitioner. I love working with this medium aseach and every child gains something from playing with it and more importantly I learn something about each child through observing them interacting with it.

Using the art mat as a base, I made mountains of shaving foam around the mat and added some different colour paint on top of the mountain or next to it. This provides a sensory experience as well as a colour changing experience.

Messy play offers many opportunities for learning and development, here’s a few examples:

Children can use their fingers in shaving foam, which then develops their fine motor skills. Hands-on activities will provide opportunities for children to compare textures such as smooth, rough, hard and soft. During messy play, children will be given many opportunities to speak and listen. They will use words and gestures to share resources, explain actions, negotiate plans and take turns. Through messy play, children can develop concentration, problem-solving and planning, and this can be done for any messy play activity!

And most importantly… there is no "right" way for children to do messy play, in every single way they explore messy play it will always build up their self-confidence and self-esteem!

Another shaving foam activity we trialled was using shaving foam and powder paint. This was bright, neon powder paint!! We sprinkled some on top and again by the side of the shaving foam to allow the children to explore in whatever they wanted.

And for the clean up…simply, a wipe over with the towel. (Maybe a more achievable messy play activity at home….please do share your shaving foam messy play pics.)

Thanks for reading,

Nic