I am so excited to be starting a new series, Fall into Sensory PLAY, with Crystal from Growing a Jeweled Rose! Over the next two weeks on Mondays and Thursdays we will sharing fun ideas for Fall themed sensory play. Today we both came up with a hands-on pumpkin themed activity. My kids made pumpkin pie, but not like any you’ve had before. You see, our Scented Shaving Cream Pumpkin Pie isn’t edible but it smells yummy and little ones will love creating it. When you are done here head over to Growing a Jeweled Rose and get your hands dirty with their Pumpkin Slime Play Recipe.
You will need:
If you would like to purchase the supplies we used for this project, affiliate links have been provided for your convenience.
- Unscented shaving cream
- Pie tin
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Red, blue and orange food coloring
- Sand
You will want your kids to wear their play clothes for this activity as it will get messy! We got shaving cream all over our hands and shirts.
Start out by filling a bowl with shaving cream. We made three pies so we needed quite a bit. You won’t need this much if you are just making one pie.
Add some orange food coloring. For our giant bowl of shaving cream we used 1/4 of a container of orange gel food coloring. Mix until you get a dark orange.
You will want to turn the shaving cream into more of a brownish color so add some red and blue food coloring and stir to mix.
Now it’s take to take it up a notch and make this smell like a pumpkin pie! This requires a lot of pumpkin pie spice. Even unscented shaving cream has a scent, so in order to overpower that, you will want to mix in lots of pumpkin pie spice.
We kept adding and mixing until the shaving cream smelled like pumpkin pie.
After the shaving cream mixture is ready, you can start making your pie. We used an aluminum pie tin and some wet sand for this step. Have your child scoop the wet sand into the pan and smooth it out to make a crust. My kids tried to push some wet sand against the sides too.
Now it’s time to add the “pie filling.” We scooped ours into the pie plate and spread it around using a small spatula. You child can also do this with their hands. The food coloring will color their hands, but ours came off after just a few washings.
My daughter smooths out her pie and makes sure the shaving cream is all spread out.
Pie anyone? These pies smelled so good and even looked similar to a pumpkin pie. The kids were thrilled with how they turned out.
They decided to set up a restaurant and start serving each other the pies. I just love how this sensory activity inspired pretend play!
The kids played for a long time ordering pies, serving them, taking them away and of course smelling them!
Now head over to Growing a Jeweled Rose to see how they made and played with Pumpkin Slime.
Jodie Clarke says
I love this idea! We don't have much pumpkin pie here in Australia (not sure why as I love it!)but I know my girls will still have a lot of fun making some pies!
OneMommy says
How fun! Pinned it!
goldenreflections1 says
This is amazing! I am including a link to this post in a round up post I am doing of 10 Fall Sensory Activities for kids! Here is the link so you can see it! http://wp.me/p3xXyV-ru Will be live on Sept 26th at 6:30am EST!
Anna says
What a fun outdoor activity for Fall! Thanks for linking up at After School.
[email protected] says
I just love this idea it's awesome. Hey do you think if we added white glue it stay. I was thinking of having them make mini pies for part of their Thanksgiving centerpieces. We also do a Harvest festival theme in November and these could be a prop for the farmewrs market. Do think they would be okay or would they mold. Thank you fro sharing your awesome idea my preschoolers love everything messy.
Vicky @ Mess For Less says
That is a good question. I honestly have no idea what would happen but if you try it (maybe you can make a small one) please let me know. It sounds like a great idea.