Magic Rainbow Foam {Preschool Sensory Science Experiment}

It has been said that play is children's best research, and this Magic Rainbow Foam lets your preschoolers experiment in the most fun way...with a mess!  (Happily, it is easy to clean up too!)

This rainbow foam is so extremely easy to set up, you can even let your kiddos help decide what the rainbow should look like.  The colors appeal to their visual sensory processing while the foam is a unique texture they can experiment with.

The process uses their fine motor muscles and (if you let them add more foam) is a great work out for little fingers!

Creating the foam is easy:  just spray shaving cream into tins for each child.  I usually stock up on shaving cream from the dollar store.  Exercise judgement if your children can be safe with shaving cream: children with sensitive skin may need gloves and babies who eat shaving cream should use an alternate like whipped cream instead.

Adding the colors is even more fun...and it leads us to the "magical" discussion/experiment.

Use small cake decorating sprinkles to add colors.  You can pour them in a line like a rainbow or in colorful rainbow clusters like we did.  I also used a little green cake decorating gel because I ran out of green sprinkles.  :)

So why is it magical?

As your children play in it they will notice that the colors disappear!  

Or did they?  

Ask your kiddos to look closely.  Can they find any of the sprinkles?

As a fun extension, you can sprinkle corn starch on top of the cream to make "cloud dough."  Watch how the texture changes and talk with your children about how the change feels.  Be sure to snap some pictures of their surprise and delight! 

What else do they want to mix in?

I may share at any of these parties!