5-Minute Soap Foam Sensory Play

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 colors 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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This easy bubble foam recipe is perfect for days when you don’t have a lot of time to prep activities.

It only requires a few simple supplies, and it takes less than 5 minutes to make, so your child will be playing in no time. Plus, it can be adapted in a variety of different ways to suit your child’s interests.

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.

Required Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make homemade bubble foam for your kids to play with:

• Water
• Food coloring or liquid watercolors (optional)
• Dish soap or bubble bath liquid (for play during bath time) or baby body wash (for children with sensitive skin)

Note: This article will show you how to make bubble foam using a blender, but you can also use a hand mixer.

How to Make Sensory Soap Foam for Kids (Step-by-Step)

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 color of foam that I made, but the quantities don’t need to be exact.

2. Add Food Color

To color the bath foam, add a few drops of food coloring or liquid watercolor paint to the water and turn on your blender for a few seconds to combine them.

The color will get a lot lighter once the bubble foam has formed, so don’t be scared to add lots of food coloring to ensure that the final color is nice and vibrant. I added about 8 drops and the foam still ended up pastel-colored.

Note: I made three colors, but feel free to stick with just one color if you’re short on time!

3. Add Dish Soap

Add about 3 squirts of dish soap (1-2 tablespoons) to the colored 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.

P.S. Looking for more squeaky clean fun? Try whipping up some “clean mud” for your child’s next sensory bin!

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 colors separate until it’s time to create your rainbow. Once you’re done creating all the colors, 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 colored foam using blue and green food coloring 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 colored 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!

Related Sensory Activities

Looking for more easy sensory play ideas to try with your kids? Check out these articles:

• DIY Bubble Bath Play Dough
• Homemade Moon Sand
• 2-Ingredient Cloud Dough (No-Cook + Gluten-Free!)
• Frog Spawn Sensory Bin

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