Art Activities With Shaving Cream
Shaving cream stirs a sense of awe in children. Large amounts of the substance seem to magically appear from a small can. It's light, airy, fluffy and smells nice. Squeezing it feels icky, but it feels like a tiny treasure when you simply hold it in the palm of your hand. The mousse creates a wide variety of sensory experiences for a child, and integrating it into an arts curriculum can help build tactile awareness and refine motor skills.
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Swirl Paintings
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Teach color and mixing properties to children. Have your students mix differently colored paints with the shaving cream. Try mixing in one color, then two colors. State that blending paints with the mousse is more difficult than mixing paints into paints. If the paint is not mixed into the shaving cream well enough, both ingredients will retain their individual properties, producing a marbleized look. For this particular style, you can first introduce Van Gogh's well-known masterpiece "Starry Night" and follow with the students duplicating Van Gogh's signature swirls.
Furry Animals Paintings
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Generally, paint sits flat when applied on paper. Shaving cream possesses a more full-bodied, three-dimensional characteristic, which can be a fun addition to painting. Kids can paint their favorite furry animals. They can create spikes by flicking their paintbrushes upward and imitate short-haired animals by pressing the paintbrush down repeatedly across the paper in a layered fashion, giving a matted look.
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Finger Painting
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Shaving cream feels soft and awakens the senses. Nothing is more exciting for a child than to touch what he sees. Finger painting allows a child to freely sculpt and create textures that could not have been easily achieved with artistic implements like brushes. Give your students a theme and have them finger paint something related to that subject.
Ice Cream Cones
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Students can draw and color their own cones and paste them onto construction paper. The actual ice cream will consist of the shaving cream. Their creative juices will flow as they try to decide whether their ice cream is drippy, rainbow-colored, ice cold and much more. Put out supplies like little buttons, which can function as ice cream toppings.
Shaving Cream Snow
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Like snow, students can create three-dimensional objects with shaving cream. Let your students explore the medium with a freestyle play session. They will have a blast sculpting, molding and poking their fingers through their creations.
Warnings
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Emphasize that shaving cream is not edible. Young children may mistake shaving cream for whipped cream, which is similar in texture.
Make sure the activity is age appropriate for your students. Some materials like little buttons are choking hazards for younger children.
Make sure each student dons a smock to protect clothing and minimize cleanup time.
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References
- Photo Credit PhotoObjects.net/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
