Painting with Shaving Cream

Shaving cream is one of those things teachers either love or hate. I tried it once in my kindergarten classroom in a whole group lesson and learned my lesson not to do that ever again! However, I didn’t give up on it… I tried it again in small groups and it was much more manageable, but it’s not like it came out once a week… or once a month even.

Now that I’m homeschooling the shaving cream has come out of the cabinet a few times this year. We’ve practice writing letters, our names, sight words, and numbers. I’ve figured out a few tricks through the years that have made things a little easier, which I’ll share with you later.

This week is Thanksgiving week, so we’re taking a break from the routine and just having fun so I gave the kids a choice…

Shaving Cream or Watercolor Paint

It was a tough choice. They love both, but obviously, they chose Shaving Cream! Since they love painting also and they didn’t choose that I thought maybe they could combine both worlds by painting with shaving cream. They liked the idea, so I pulled out the paint brushes and this is how we got started!

Painting with Shaving Cream:

Materials:

Shaving Cream

Paint brushes (any size will work, but small watercolor paint brushes work great)

Squeegee or cut plastic square (I’ll share more about this later.)

Smock

Optional Decorations: beads, cut pipe cleaner, cut straws, bells… the list goes on!

Tip #1.  Choose a good spot. Shaving cream can get messy pretty fast, but it can be cleaned up pretty easy if you do it right. I like to be near a sink or water source. You don’t want 10 five-year-olds walking down the hall with shaving cream covering their hands, because that’s not the only place the shaving cream will be in the next 5 minutes.

Tip # 2. Choose a smooth surface. You want clean up to be fast and easy to make transitioning into the next activity fast. We have a plastic picnic table that has a gritty surface. While it might be a fun sensory experience at some point, in general the rough surface would make clean up difficult unless you could just spray it off with a hose.

Tip #3. Wear a smock to cover clothing. Even a large old t-shirt would help.

Tip #4. Keep some wipes or paper towels nearby to do a quick wipe up of any shaving cream that drips on clothing, the floor, or anywhere else it is not supposed to be.

Tip #5. Go through your behavior expectations before you spray the shaving cream on the table. It’s important to mention rules like, “Do not clap while you have shaving cream in your hands.” I even explain the WHY. “It might go in your eyes or your friends and it hurts. Even still they might try it, so be prepared with wipes or a sink for eye washing. Also, it’s important to let them know where the shaving cream is allowed to be and where it is not. For multiple students painting in a general area, let them know where each student’s personal painting area is. If they have a difficult time understanding this concept, use painter’s tape to mark a square in front of them.

Tip #6. Squeegees work well to easily clean up shaving cream from a table, but there have their cons. One drawback is their size and shape. Even the smallest size is pretty big so whether you keeping just one or one for each student, storing them could be a setback. Instead, I recommend using a cut plastic square. How? you may ask… It’s simple.

Take a plastic folder and cut it into about 3 inch squares. These are great because storage for even 30 would take up minimal space. They are cheap. One folder would make enough for several students. Also, these work great as erasers. Their small size makes them easy to have on hand for each student. Just show the kids how to use the edge to scrape the table clean and the bend the plastic square while smearing the cream back on the table in a pile. In addition, you can also have them use the squares to spread the shaving cream evenly in front of them.

Directions:

1. Spray a pile of shaving cream in a central location. I typically choose the middle of the table if students are sharing. As I learned during my first experience, less is more with shaving cream. You can always add more.

2. Provide the students with a paint brush that they can dip in the shaving cream and then paint a chosen object or scene in front of them. They can also paint words or numbers if you want to add academics back into this activity.

3. When finished, have them use their “eraser” a.k.a. cut plastic square, to wipe their area clean and begin again.

Even I joined in the fun...

Christmas Activity:

We had fun shaping the shaving cream into a triangular Christmas tree shape. Then, decorated the tree with cut pipe cleaner as garland and a yellow star topper as well as beads for ornaments. It would be fun to see what designs kids could create. There are many shapes that would be fun to decorate in this fashion from wreaths to snowmen.

Last Thought… If you have some food die to change the color of the shaving cream, I think it would even make this activity more interesting. We might try that next time!

Do you love this idea? Try it! I’d love to hear all about your learning experience and share your pictures too!

God Bless You on Your Learning Journey ~

Learning Beads

This is a little activity we’ve been playing for a while. Each time we play, we add more to the learning experience! When we first started playing, it was for the purpose of building finger muscles and hand-eye coordination, but as now we practice skills like recognizing colors, patterning, sorting by color, counting, graphing, estimating, comparing numbers, and more. The great thing about this activity is that there are few materials needed and it is quick and easy set-up!

Materials:

Multi-Colored Beads – I used Pony Beads that were pink, yellow, orange, blue, white, and green.

Wooden Kabob Sticks – You will want to make sure the wooden sticks will fit through the hole of the beads that you use.

Play Dough – You will need the same color play dough as the beads that you choose to use if you are working on colors.

Plate/Bowl – The plate/bowl will keep the beads from rolling around and onto the floor while your students are working on this activity.

Directions:

(Fine Motor Skills)

Provide each student with beads in a plate or bowl. Stick the pointy side of a kabob sticks down into play dough while still in the container. Students pick beads from their plate or bowl and push them down onto the kabob stick, but not to far as to push them into the play dough.

(Color Recognition and Patterning)

Students place beads on the kabob stick to create a pattern based on the colors of the beads. Have students name the colors and identify the name of their pattern.

(Color Recognition and Sorting)

For this activity, you will need play dough colors that match your bead choice colors. Line the play dough containers up and place one kabob stick in each. Students should name the color of the bead they choose from their plate or bowl and place it on the stick found in the matching play dough color.

(Graphing, Estimating, Comparing Numbers)

This activity continues on from the Color Recognition and Sorting activity found above. Once all the beads have been placed on the appropriate sticks, have students look at the beads in bar-graph-like fashion. Have them determine which bead color they have the most of and the least of. Have students make a guess to determine how many beads they have in each color.

(Counting and Comparing Numbers)

Once all the beads have been sorted by color, you can have students count how many beads are stacked for each color. Caleb counted two different ways. First, he tried counting just by starting at the bottom and pointing to each bead as he counted up the stick. When that proved difficult, we laid the play dough container on its side so Caleb could slide the beads one at a time to the right like an abacus. We didn’t need to, but if there was a problem with beads sliding off the top, you could stick another container of play dough on the opposite end. Once we count all the sets of bead colors, we line them up from the smallest about to the largest about. We talk about which colors equaled and what that means when we’re organizing them in order.

   

If you love these activities and would like a resource to help encourage your students to transfer their understandings from what they’ve learned to paper check out my product: Learning Beads (Counting & Cardinality).

I hope you are inspired to bring some fun to your learning activities by reading my blog. I enjoy sharing my ideas with you. I know teaching can feel overwhelming at times, especially if you look at Pinterest for all your ideas, so I like to share ideas on how to make learning fun and purposeful without a lot of preparation. 

God Bless Your Learning Journey!

No Sew Quiet Activity Book

As you know I have two little blessings. Lily Anne is just shy of 17 months and Caleb is 3. We attend church each Sunday, especially when we are in our home town. Our goal is to spend the worship service in the pew as a family. Our small church doesn’t offer children’s church, but if our kids are having a hard time, there is a nursery in the back they can visit. I prefer to keep them in the service with us learning how to sit, listen to the preacher and worship together as a family. 

My husband is usually in charge of Lily Anne and I am Caleb’s quiet reminder. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time keeping my 3 year old quiet at any time and church time seems to be the hardest. He knows what it means to sit still. He knows what it means to be quiet. He knows that he is expected to sit still and be quiet (within reason for a 3 year old) in church, but the moment we walk in the door he is talking in a booming voice, making screeching noises, laughing, burping, coughing, and the list goes on. My husband and I sit in the back of church and we try our best to keep him involved in the worship service by encouraging him to sing the songs. He loves to sing and he loves music. I remind him that the people want to hear what the pastor is talking about… the great things that happened this past week, those that are sick, and learning about Jesus. I try to keep him quiet with paper and a pencil or crayons, a book from home, a soft toy, or even his favorite toy trucks, but it is a constant struggle leaving me stressed as I exit the church doors and that is just keeping him in the service during the music portion. By the time the pastor begins his service, we take turns watching the children in the nursery. 

Saturday night, I again Googled to try to find some ideas on how to teach Caleb to be quiet in church. In the past, I’ve read posts about practicing at home, which we do. He’s great while I read stories to him. He could listen for an hour, but he does like to be involved in the story by asking questions, pointing, counting, and talking about the stories and I want that too as it builds his comprehension and vocabulary skills. We’ve even played quiet games where I time him to see how long he can be quiet while just sitting on the couch. We’ve made it up to 2 minutes. This time, I spotted Quiet Books, fabric books that keep little hands busy doing quiet activities by matching, pairing, sorting, counting, etc. “That a nifty concept,” I thought. While I have a sewing machine, it’s still in the box unpacked from our move 3 years ago. Even if I did pull it out, set it up, pull out my stash of fabric and begin sewing like a mad woman, Caleb would be in college by the time I finished one of these very intricate books and hopefully he would be able to sit quietly in church without one by then. I still liked the concept, but it had to be something I could work on that night (Saturday at 10:30pm) and have for him for church the next morning. 

The wheels started turning and this is what I came up with…

It’s not fabric, but it is still quiet and the activities are created in the same fashion with the intent on encouraging him to learn (not just play at church). I want him to associate church time as a learning time, not a play time. I had a couple of issues with most of the quiet books online (other than sewing). First, most of the tasks only required the child to unzip a zipper, lift a snapped section or button a button. Most of the pages would be completed in less than 2 seconds. I wanted to create something where the tasks were engaging and took some time to complete. The second issue was that some of the example quiet book pages included activities that would encourage talking (at least for my child), as they were felt story boards or included finger puppets... that didn’t work for me.

Since it was Saturday at 10:30pm when I started this quest, I only created 2 activities to test out the effectiveness of the “Quiet Book” during church. Later, I would decide to make more or use it for something else. I also added 2 activities I already had.

 

When we went to church on Sunday, I carried the Quiet Book in my bag. We had our usual discussion on the way to church about how to sit and how to be quiet. For the first half of church, it was practice as usual. I tried to include him in singing with me, praying to Jesus, listening to the announcements, etc. When he could hold it in no longer, I brought out the Quiet Book. He was very interested in completing each task, but only once, except for his name puzzle which he did over and over probably 6 times. During this time, he sat in my lap as we went through the book. I did focus a lot of my attention on him and what he was doing, but it wasn’t a struggle and I could still listen to the preacher from time to time and get the gist of his message. These activities got him through most of the sermon. About 15 minutes shy of church ending, I noticed he was done and about to start getting wild, I pulled out the raisins. They’re a quiet activity as well and along with the support of a sippy cup, we made it through to the end of the service with a happy 3 year old and an unstressed mom. Win! Win! I plan to make more of these pages… in fact I have already added a couple. In addition, I want to include some Bible related activities like an animal matching game on Noah’s ark. I will share these activities with you when I do. 

For now, here are the activities that I included in Caleb’s Quiet Book. 

1. The Front Cover - This wasn't included in the initial trial on Sunday, but I think he will enjoy it. I wanted the cover to be just a engaging as any of the other pages within the book. There are actually several activities that we can do with it. The inner section displays a small road that a tiny foam car can drive around on. The outer section of squares can be used to work on multiple skills. He can just place one paperclip inside each square to work on fine motor skills as well as one-to-one correspondence. He can build fine motor skills by sliding the colored paper squares into the paperclips. He can work on patterning, counting, or even addition and subtraction later on by attaching the paper squares in a specific place and order. It's really a cover that will grow along with his skill level.

2. Name Puzzle - I already had this activity on hand. HERE is a post where I share how to make one and games you can play with it. I just slid the puzzle into the first plastic sleeve inside the binder and I was done!

  

3. Lacing Cards - Again, this was an activity I had made earlier this week. You may have purchased lacing cards or made your own, but these are great quiet activities! To make this one, I cut a file folder in half while it was closed so that when I opened the cut portion, it opened like a book. this gave it a little more stiffness. I drew the bear on the folder and used a hole punch to punch holes around the edge. I laminated the folder to give it some extra protection, then hole punched the holes again. I tied a string in a knot through one of the holes making sure the string was long enough to get all the way around the card. I attached a pipe cleaner... LIKE THIS.

4. Colors Activity - This is the activity I started Saturday night... Again, I used a file folder cut in half, the same way I did the lacing card, but this time I also cut it in half down the folded edge because it wouldn't fit in my laminated opened and I wanted to use it like a book. I sized a sheet of construction paper to the front and labeled it "Colors."

On the back of that sheet, I drew 10 squares and using a permanent marker labeled them each one color. I cut out same sized squares from 10 different colors of construction paper. I cut out 2 squares from each color. I glued one set of colors to a same sized square of file folder to provide it some stiffness and laminated them. The second set of colors, I glued to the other half of the file folder I cut previously. I used a permanent marker to label each color. Then, I added small Velcro pieces to the color squares and the squares on the file folders. I attached the soft side of the Velcro to the squares on the file folders and the rough side of the Velcro to the color squares.

For this activity, I started with all the color squares on the labeled squares shown by the picture on the top. Caleb then matched the color squares to the color squares on the left shown by the picture on the bottom. Later, when he can read color words, he can move them back to the matching color on the left. 

5. Shape Activity - For this activity, I used the second half the of file folder and cut it in the same manner as before. I attached both the Color Activity and the Shape Activity together using 1 inch rings, so I took advantage of the space the back of the Color Activity game be to "store" the shape pieces as seen on the left side of the picture below. I create shapes the same way I created color squares above. Then, I placed Velcro on the back of the color page and the title page of the Shapes page as seen below.

Then, on the back of the title page as well as the second half of the cut file folder, I traced the shapes as seen below with permanent marker. I attached the soft side of the Velcro to the shapes in the book as well as the "storage" area of the book seen above. I attached the rough side of the shape pieces. I laminated everything prior to adding Velcro in order to make it last longer. Hopefully we will get a LOT of use out of these activities.

 For this activity, Caleb removes one shape from the storage area and moves it to the matching shape in this activity area. 

6. The Back Cover - Again, this is not something I included in the initial trial. I had it, but it wasn't laminated. My hope is that it will be a quiet activity, but I'm worried that we might get some horns tooting...

I used a colored piece of copy paper and stickers from Caleb's Thomas the Train Sticker book. For this activity, Caleb will drive one of his trains around the track... hopefully quietly...

I'm excited about using this book with him. I'm not letting him have it at home as I want to keep the activities new and fresh for him, but I will bring it along to other destinations where he needs to be quiet and respectful to others. I'm looking forward to continuing to make more quiet activities to add to this book. Right now, this Quiet Book is housed in a 1 inch binder. My plan is to add about 6 - 8 activities to the folder, but I will make more than that. I am going to have another larger binder where I will store all the activities. Then, I can change them out as needed based on his interest, skill level, how well the encourage quiet/or not, etc. 

I hope this helps you if you are having the same issue I am. Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear your comments.

God Bless your Learning Journey~