Valentines Day Shaving Cream Messy Play

I'm always looking for ways to help make the holidays fun and exciting for the tots. Shaving cream messy play is always a favorite at our house, so I added some Valentines Day bits for extra fun. 

These little faces are really excited to get started! I filled up our sensory table with almost 3 cans of sensitive skin shaving cream. Then I stirred in a few drops cinnamon leaf essential oil as I smoothed it out. Drizzled a bit of red washable paint on top then added some foamy hearts I picked up in the dollar spot. The Kids are armed with paint brushes and an assortment of random kitchen utensils.

They really enjoyed discovering the foamy hearts, realizing they could stick on the walls and on each other!

Little Miss A usually isn't too into anything messy. Digging in with two hands was a BIG step for her. Z Rex on the other hand is all about getting as messy as possible!

It is always fun to sit back and watch how they interact and play with the given materials. Today there was lots of wall painting and drawing.  

 Z Rex is all about the full body experience with any kind of sensory based play. It never takes him long to be completely covered, in the bin, and having a great time. He's a messy play loving kid at heart!

As the kids naturally wind down after their initial excitement, I try to demonstrate a new way to interact with the play materials. They were excited to see they could write and draw on the bottom of the sensory table with the shaving cream. The red paint swirled through beautifully and the cinnamon leaf EO made everything smell like red hots candy. 

 The best part of messy play in the shower or tub is that clean up is a snap. We let the water run for a little while to add yet another dimension to our messy play experience. They really liked mixing the water and shaving cream to see it 'melt' together. Then we used cups and scoops to splash the walls washing away all our mess. Everyone got a good scrub down, then off to bed for these guys.