I bet you won’t be able to resist diving into this Valentines Sensory Play activity filled with ice hearts, waterbeads and shaving foam, when you set it up for your kids!
There is something about the silky texture of shaving foam against the smoothness of waterbeads, that really engages my daughters. Whenever I combine the two of them in a sensory play activity, it is always a big hit. With Valentines Day just around the corner, it was time to add some love and hearts to our winter sensory play.
Valentines Sensory Play: Messy Ice Hearts
Supplies
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- Deep Tray
- Shaving Foam
- Waterbeads
- Heart Shaped Ice-Cube Tray
- Red Food Colouring
- Baking Tray
- Scoops and other Fine Motor Tools
The Day the Activity
- I “grew” the waterbeads as per the instructions on the packet.
- Added red food colouring to water and poured it into the ice-cue tray and popped it into the freezer overnight.
It’s time to get Messy
I loaded all of the goodies into a deep tray and presented them to my daughter. Delight filled her face when she saw her favourite sensory materials all ready for her to play with. But it was the ice hearts which held her immediate attention. They were the first items she started to explore with her hands. I found this really interesting, as we did a similar activity last year and she didn’t really enjoy the feeling of the cold ice on her hands that time. Don’t be put off if your child doesn’t enjoy a sensory activity the first time you try it out, maybe just wait until they are a little older and try it with them again.
Once she had had a good explore with her hands and fingers, I then introduced a selection of fine motor tools to the activity and she asked for a baking tray as well. She loves to do “Pretend Baking” with shaving foam and waterbeads and it wasn’t long before she was whipping up a batch of Valentine’s Cupcakes for Daddy.
There was just one thing missing though….Sprinkles! And Bella had just the idea on what she wanted to use…Glitter! Luckily we had a little left over in our Christmas crafting supplies and this finished them off a treat.