We love water beads in our house. These squishy beads are the perfect sensory material. In the past we have played with frozen water beads and engaged in creative play with water beads. Today, we combined them with shaving cream and yummy scents to make pretend cupcakes.
Please supervise your child and use your good parental judgement with this and any activity. If your child still puts everything in their mouth, it would be best to hold off on this until they are older.
If you wish to purchase supplies for this project, this post contains affiliate links.
You will need:
- Water Beads
- Shaving Cream
- Frosting Creations (in the baking section, usually less than $1 a packet)
- Vanilla
- Small round plastic containers (I save applesauce cups which work perfectly for this activity)
- Spoons
Squirt some shaving cream into the plastic cups. I made 4 cups per child.
Add different flavors of Frosting Creations to each of the cups of shaving cream and mix to get a yummy smelling “cupcake.” If you haven’t tried Frosting Creations yet, they are flavored powders that come in a variety of flavors that you can use to flavor plain frosting. We used the following flavors: orange, cotton candy, white chocolate raspberry and cotton strawberry shortcake. We also used some cooking vanilla to make vanilla scented “cupcakes.”
Once the cupcakes are mixed, provide some water beads to decorate with.
Both water beads and shaving cream provide a great sensory experience for kids.
My youngest used the water beads like sprinkles on her cupcakes. I love how she even has shaving cream in her hair!
My twins pushed the water beads into the shaving cream to make “fruit filled cupcakes.”
Clean up for this activity is a breeze. Just scoop the shaving cream and water bead mixture into a colander or strainer and run water over it to dissolve the shaving cream. You will be left with clean water beads that you can then use again.
For more sensory play ideas check out:
Louanne says
so fun! The frozen ones in the applesauce cups kept my girls busy for an hour. They will love this too. Thanks.
Vicky @ Mess For Less says
Louanne, yay, so happy they liked the frozen water beads!
mericherry says
I have a bag of water beads in the fridge just waiting for this! Thanks!
Jen says
Could you use koolaid packets instead ?
Vicky says
I think that would work and probably smell great!