S is for Shaving Cream Sensory Play (2024)

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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.

Heather Greutman, COTA

Heather Greutman is a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant with experience in school-based OT services for preschool through high school. She uses her background to share child development tips, tools, and strategies for parents, educators, and therapists. She is the author of many ebooks including The Basics of Fine Motor Skills, and Basics of Pre-Writing Skills, and co-author of Sensory Processing Explained: A Handbook for Parents and Educators.