Looking for a way to keep your toddler entertained? This easy soap foam sensory bin only requires 3 ingredients and 5 minutes of your time. Make all the colours of the rainbow or stick with blue for some foamy sea foam sensory play—perfect for indoors, for bath time or for your child’s water table!
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Ever since I discovered sensory play a few years back, I’ve had fun trying dozens of different recipes to keep my kids busy.
They especially love Edible Water Beads and Edible Marshmallow Play Dough… or really anything that they can nibble on while they play.
But those do take a little while to make, and some mornings are busier than others. So for a little while now, I’ve been on the lookout for more sensory recipes that are both fun and quick to make.
This 2-Ingredient Cloud Dough has become our go-to when we don’t have regular play dough on hand and I don’t have the time to make it. And I always keep some baking soda in the freezer in case the kids feel like playing with their favourite 2-Ingredient Fake Snow.
But because they like to explore a wide variety of textures, I also wanted to find a quick sensory foam recipe that I could use on busy mornings to keep my toddler and preschooler entertained. And this easy soap foam recipe turned out to be exactly what I was looking for!
Note: This recipe isn’t taste-safe, but if you’re looking for a safe alternative for an infant or toddler who likes to put everything in their mouth, you can check out this Taste-Safe Sensory Foam.
How to Make Sensory Soap Foam for Kids
Required Ingredients
Here’s what you’ll need to make homemade bubble foam for your kids to play with:
- Water
- Food colouring or liquid watercolours (optional)
- Dish soap (you can also use bubble bath liquid to create squeaky-clean bubble bath foam for bath time!)
Note: If your child has dry, sensitive skin that reacts when exposed to soap, try replacing the dish soap with baby body wash. It’s designed for sensitive skin, so it shouldn’t dry out their skin as much.
Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Pour Water in Blender
Start by pouring some water into the bowl of a blender or food processor. I used about ½ cup of water for each colour of foam that I made, but the quantities don’t need to be exact.
2. Add Food Colour
To colour the bath foam, add a few drops of food colouring or liquid watercolour paint to the water and turn on your blender for a few seconds to combine them.
The colour will get a lot lighter once the bubble foam has formed, so don’t be scared to add lots of food colouring to ensure that the final colour is nice and vibrant. I added about 8 drops and the foam still ended up pastel-coloured.
Note: I made three colours, but feel free to stick with just one colour if you’re short on time!
3. Add Dish Soap
Add about 3 squirts of dish soap (1-2 tablespoons) to the coloured water and turn on your blender or food processor. Run it for about a minute, until the mixture looks nice and foamy.
The higher the ratio of dish soap to water, the stiffer your foam will be. Feel free to experiment with different quantities until you find something you like.
Once you’re happy with the texture of your soap foam, place it in a large bin—or one of the alternatives mentioned below—and let your little ones play with it!
We chose to use a bin because we did this activity right before lunch and it’s really cold outside right now up here in Canada.
But if it’s warm out where you live, you can turn your bubble foam into an outdoor activity by placing it in your child’s water table or kiddie pool. This will also make the cleanup easier since you can simply hose it down when your little ones are done playing!
If taking it outdoors is not a possibility, you can also let your kids play with it the soap foam in a bathtub. This should contain the mess and allow multiple children to play with the bubble foam at once.
Fun Things to Do with Soap Foam
Rainbow Soap Foam
To make rainbow soap foam, repeat the process outlined in this article six times to create purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red sensory foam.
The bubble foam has a tendency to spread out a bit, so I recommend keeping the colours separate until it’s time to create your rainbow. Once you’re done creating all the colours, quickly pour them side by side in a large bin, in rainbow order, and give the foamy rainbow bubbles to your child to play with!
Foamy Sea Foam Sensory Play
Does your child love the ocean? Make coloured foam using blue and green food colouring to turn this activity into soapy sea foam sensory play.
Just add some ocean-themed toys and let your child’s imagination run wild! You can even use some sand to create a small beach next to your bubble foam ocean.
Soap Foam Bath
If you’re looking for a way to make bath time more fun, try adding some coloured bubble foam to your child’s bath and letting them paint on themselves and the walls with it! You can use children’s bubble bath liquid instead of dish soap, but it doesn’t really matter as dish soap is usually soft on skin.
Related: Easy Shaving Cream Bath Paint
How Long Does Bubble Foam Last?
Unfortunately, bubble foam doesn’t last very long because the bubbles eventually lose their airiness. Ours usually lasts about an hour.
But an hour is plenty of time to play, and soap foam is so easy to make that you can easily whip up another batch if ever your kids want to keep playing!
Sensory Soap Foam
Ingredients
- ½ cup water
- food colouring as needed
- 1-2 tbsp dish soap
Instructions
- Pour water into blender.
- Add 5-10 drops of food colouring and run blender for a few seconds to combine.
- Add dish soap to blender. Turn on blender and run on high speed for 1-3 minutes, until mixture is nice and foamy.
- Repeat previous steps to create as many colours as you like. Then, place the soap foam in a large bin, bathtub or water table and let your child play!
Related Sensory Activities
Looking for more easy sensory play ideas to try with your kids? Check out these articles:
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