Panda Bear Craft ...and other fun with shaving cream

This was meant to be a polar bear based on this craft, but since I chose to make some changes, I feel that it ended up looking a bit more like a panda bear than a polar bear. This is in keeping with this week's theme for our stash, I suppose, since Simon is learning about Chinese New Year at school.

We started with:

Shaving cream
White glue
Two large black circles, cut from construction paper
Three small black circles, cut from construction paper
A "v", cut from construction paper
A circle of cardboard, cut from the back of a cracker box

We mixed 1/8 cup of shaving cream with 1/8 cup glue in our bowl, then had a lovely time smearing it all over our cardboard. Simon carefully placed the facial features on top. After a night of drying, this was our finished product.

The texture of the paint is fantastic, and Simon is fascinated with how it is dry but still a bit pliant.

After we had put our bear together, Simon still wanted to play with the shaving cream. I helped him spray it all over the table, and then we had fun writing our names in it and making a mess. (A mess that smells good and is easy to clean up.)

I used to do this when I taught preschool, until the powers that be decided the kids might try to eat it and dictated that whipped cream be used instead (which is only a good idea if you like children who smell of sour milk). I assure you that Simon ingested no shaving cream and had a lovely time.

Popsicles for the Birds

One of the crafts in our stash this week was popsicles for the birds - an idea inspired by Ice Ornaments.
First, I let Simon pour birdseed into plastic containers.
Second, he poured one cup of water into each container.
Finally, he lay a piece of yard into each container with enough hanging out to tie onto a branch.

We placed the containers in the freezer. We checked them a couple of times before bed so that Simon could see how the water temperature was changing and how ice was forming on the surface. The next morning, he was chuffed to see they were completely frozen. When we returned home from work/preschool, I took him outside to hang the bird popsicles (which popped easily out of the containers) to one of our evergreen trees.

The yard happened to be full of birds, so Simon tried to speed the melting process in order to feed them, but found the ice a bit to thick to "bam" apart.

He settled for going inside and looking through our Audobon guide to see who might be eating the seeds once the ice melted.

Overall, a successful, education, enjoyable project;)

Snow Foam

Last week, one of the crafts in Simon's stash was snow foam.  We had a ton of fun with it! In fact, Simon kept saying, "We're having so much fun! We're having a great time, aren't we?"

We mixed 1 cup of shaving cream with 1 cup of white glue to make our foam. Them, we finger painted on 12x12 sheets of sturdy scrapbook paper (salvaged from my pre-motherhood art supplies, which have all now gone to Simon).  We had great fun exploring the texture of the foam and drawing through it with our fingers and the cap from the empty glue bottle.

We ended up with a plethora of finished products - here is a sampling.

I love the one with our hand prints! We plan to do this again when we have friends over, since it was cheap,  easy to set up, and easy to clean up.