Speech Ideas with Shaving Cream for Kids

Shaving Cream for Kids is a favorite activity to improve kids’ pre-writing patterns, tactile intolerance, and visual-motor skills. Shaving cream is also an affordable, motivating, and exciting activity. It can be done at home to improve the child’s vocabulary too. Although it is a little messy it gets cleaned up with a towel. If you cannot get shaving cream, you can also substitute it with hair gel or water beads. It is important to work on the attention of the child to speak. So shaving cream which is a sensory toy is good to engage your child and to attain their attention. While your child is engaged and playing using some toys, you can weave in some language skills. This play helps them to have fun and learn at the same time.

ACTIVITIES USING SHAVING CREAM:

Name, Place, Animal Game:

I ask the child to put all the animals in a tray full of shaving cream. Then add a few drops of food dye. I use blue, to have a Sea themed animal game.

Now I teach all the sea animals. I pick each of them up like Tortoise, Snail, Jellyfish, Crab, Dolphin, Shark, Eel, Shark, Seal, Whale, Starfish, and other fishes. As I ask the child to pick each one and find their names. I give the child the answer to increase their vocabulary.

If your child would like to have farm-themed animals you could make charts of Sheep, Cows, Ducks, Donkeys, Hens, etc. Make them apply it with the appropriate colors to make them learn it with fun.

I also keep two boxes of trays and ask them to separate the domestic animals and the wild animals in each tray respectively.

Story Making:

I put the toys in a bowl full of shaving cream. Then I take all the common things and slowly weave them into a story as the child picks each toy from the bowl. After I make a story, the child is given a chance to do the same. It helps in developing the sentences and in using them in the subject, verb, and object pattern.

Phonics Hunt:

Practicing pre-writing patterns like I give them a letter and ask them to write a name.

Animal shapes like the crocodile’s teeth for crocodile and piggy tails for pig, hills, a swing for the park, waves for the beach help us to play games.

Now I either spray it on a plate or spread it out on a canvas. And ask the child to write letters, numbers, or draw.

You can also ask the child to write the letter as they imitate the sound taught like ‘f’ and work on the ‘f’ sound or the sound that the child finds difficult to express.

Writing the words like ‘see’ and pronounce the word help them to pronounce the sounds appropriately and improve the child’s sight-reading. Hence this helps the child to learn the sound patterns while engrossed in the activity.

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Colour Games:

I take the shaving cream and some food dye or acrylic paint. Spraying some of the shaving creams into a tin I place the paint or dye on top of it. When I add the paints I name them as green, orange, red, blue, brown, black, and yellow. I allow the child to pour some drops into it as and when he/she names the colors.

For example: ‘Do you want to touch it?. Then I ask ‘Shall we play in the bag first?’. Later I ask “Do you want to put the paint inside?”. I then ask “What do you want ‘blue’ ?. And the child repeats it.

Gently I take a toothpick, swirl the colors until the desired pattern is made. I place the paper on top of the dyed shaving cream and then take the paper away to dry.

This paper can be made into envelopes or gift wrappers . It can help the child to increase social skills by presenting them to friends or neighbors. You can also make a Rainbow while teaching colors.

Clouds Making:

Clouds making is the activity in which I ask the child is made to draw a cloud shape as I spread the shaving cream on a canvas or a tray. I allow the child to draw a cloud-only when the child finishes the sound patterns in a word. Namely /C-A-T/ or /T-A-P/ . The child attempts to imitate the correct pattern of sounds like  /PO-TA-TO/ instead of /TO-TA-TO/.

Corn-dough:

I ask the child to mix corn-starch, shaving cream, and a few drops of food dye by hand. While doing the corn dough I shall make the child repeat the ingredients that we add.

Then I use the quantity specific like little, more, and words like the mix, dry, wet, hard, soft.  Later I make the child make it into different color balls.

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When I make this sensory play-doh, i teach the child the adjectives like hard, soft, dry, wet, sticky, clean, and dirty.

And when I finish I help them to make shapes like Star, Oval, Hexagon, Square, Circle, Triangle, etc. The child is encouraged to imitate them and name them.

Connecting Dots:

Kids love to pretend to use the shaving cream especially when there in dots in a tray. So I ask them to draw a fruit like mango or an apple, a flower or a tree.

I help the child in identifying the fruits, flowers, trees, and in naming them.

This helps their fine motor skills too. And relate them to a garden which the parent took them or a park that they had visited.

Glue Paint:

I add equal parts shaving cream, glue, few drops of food dye in a bowl. I also sprinkle some glitters to it. I give different colored shaving creams to the child for applying them on the named body part for eg. Rabbit.

The ears of the rabbit in blue, the mouth is orange, the body is green, the legs in red and the tail is pink in color. This helps the child to learn the body parts and to express them.

Making paths:

I make the child use fingers on a tray of shaving cream as you can place the toys in different positions.

Then teach directions such as right and left, turn and teach them prepositions such as behind, in front, on, below, above, back to increase the language skills of the child and to improve the child’s spatial orientation.

Counting Numbers:

I ask the child to start counting the number of buttons. The child adds buttons to the snowman. Now I ask the child to pick the number of buttons I ask for. The child learns the number concept and uses them later.

Cupcakes with shaving cream:

I give the child small ice cream cups and fill the cups with shaving cream. I prompt the child to ask each member in the family “how many toppings do you need on the cupcake?”.

Then I help the child make the cupcakes according to the number of toppings they ask for.

Secondly, I help the child ask “What flavor do you want?” . So, I help the child to add yellow bead balls for Mango, red for strawberry, and green for Mint flavor. Similarly, orange for Orange flavor and blue for blueberry flavor etc.

So in this activity, I also teach the child the money concept by selling the cupcakes.

These activities help in improving the child’s ‘Wh’ questions like ‘What, Who and learning the quantity by the question “How many?”.

Key things to remember while using shaving cream:

• Children with sensitive skin should be allowed to use only shaving creams with light odors and to avoid allergic reactions.
• Have a hand towel before you start the activities.
• The child should not squirt the shaving cream.
• Some of the children are very nervous and you have to warm them up to a new texture. So squeeze some out on the spoon and let them just play with it at first and then may touch it.
• Kindly monitor the child’s inputs like if he/she feels any burning sensation during the activity.
• Teach your child not to rub it on her face to avoid any eye irritations.
• If the child’s shaving cream disappears kindly squirt a little more to continue the activity.
• Shaving cream can also be used for pre-writing skills and for tactile sensitivity issues like they do not like certain textures on their hand. However, use it at the fingertips and slowly move by immersing their hands in the shaving cream.
• Do not compel it. Since the child needs to enjoy it as a play. If the child insists on removing it, kindly wipe them off after a few minutes. 
• It is advisable not to allow them to have free play with the shaving cream on their own.

All these activities help the child to play with you and to improve the social skills by engaging together and having fun learning too. Try out at home by weaving a rich language stimulation to it. Shaving Cream for Kids