5 Ways to Turn Chores into Sensory Activities with Shaving Cream!

Do you ever struggle to get your toddlers into their car seats? My toddlers will put up such a fight when we’re trying to get them in the car, but the moment the car seats are on the floor of our house they are the coolest toys ever. It was one of these days that I hauled the car seats into the house that I realized I could make chores into sensory activities with shaving cream.

To go to another page with more toddler activities, click here!

I have this compulsion to feed my children in the car if we are in the car for more than ten minutes. My husband has pointed out that they aren’t going to die if they don’t eat every 20 minutes, but I can’t seem to fight the feeling that they will be deprived if not given access to food at all times.

This leads to a very messy car and stinky car seats. With the cold weather, cleaning car seats is a little more challenging without being able to just hose them down on the front lawn. So I bring them inside and put them in the shower when the girls go to sleep. But this time around, I thought, why not include them in the chore? They seem to enjoy scrubbing things in their sensory bins.

Turn chores into a sensory activities with shaving cream!

It was by pure accident that I decided to use shaving cream. It was available and I thought it would dry their skin out less than soap or detergent. Little did I know it had all kinds of stain fighting powers!

Shaving Cream Cleaning Power!

It turns out shaving cream can help clean all types of surfaces!

Carpet Cleaning

According to Popular Mechanics, a great way to clean carpet stains is to use shaving cream. All you have to do is spritz some of that shaving cream onto the stain and allow it to sit for 30minutes. After letting it sit, blot it dry. You then spray it with a 1:1 water/vinegar solution. Voila!

Polish Stainless Steel

Tiny hands have an amazing ability to create huge messy handprints on stainless steel refrigerators and appliances! My brother-in-law moved in with us for a time while he worked for an appliance company. He insisted that WD-40 was the best way to polish stainless steel appliances.

I don’t typically have WD-40 on hand. However, a $1 can of shaving cream is definitely something I keep on hand for my children’s sensory activities. Slather some on either a cloth or directly onto your stainless steel appliances. Wipe it off for a beautiful polish.

This can be a great way to give your children a chance for a sensory activity and get your appliances sparkling clean!  Give them each a bowl of shaving cream, some paintbrushes, and set them in front of those stainless steel handprints (I’d put a towel under their cute bottoms so they don’t slip). After they’re done, give them a cloth to wipe away their masterpiece. It might make a mess initially, but it will lead to a cleaner appliance afterward!

Make your Jewelry Shine!

Do you have jewelry you need to clean? Shaving cream is a gentle way to get that shine you love from jewelry!

If you have jewelry that can withstand a little rough handling, let the kids help!I don’t really have jewelry so it’s the dollar store for us! Mardi gras beads!

A great way to build a sensory activity is by contrasting the soft plushness of the shaving cream with the hardness of the jewelry! Give the kids a soft sponge or brush, fill a tub up with shaving cream, and let them scrub away at the jewelry. It’s such a cool sensation to feel a necklace covered with shaving cream sliding through your fingers!

Polish Chrome Fixtures

I live in an area where the water is very hard. As such, we get hard water stains on everything. I found a great way to reduce the look of these and keep our chrome fixtures looking like I clean all the time is to let the girls at them with shaving cream. This is especially true in the bathtub. I give them each a bowl filled with shaving cream with rags and paintbrushes and let them paint the walls and fixtures. I found that even adding food coloring to the shaving cream to a paint doesn’t seem to stain our tub. After they’re finished we use bowls of water to wash away all the shaving cream. 

Car Seat Cleaning

If you want to make an activity out of cleaning up your child’s car seat, I recommend getting them their own scrubbing brushes. We have a set just for our activities so they aren’t exposed to the nasty grease from the kitchen or the germs from all the other areas I clean.

After shaking out your car seat for excess debris (if that’s an issue) place your car seat in the bathtub. Slather a generous amount of shaving cream on the car seat or give your kids their own bowls full of stuff and let them scrub away.

I have yet to find a more effective way to get rid of the smells in our car seat! Once the kids are all done you can either rinse or wipe away the shaving cream. Not going to lie, after seeing the water from our car seats I let those car seats take full showers and then I stripped the car seats and washed the fabric in the washing machine. It worked wonders!

Thanks for reading! I hope the kids enjoy and your house sparkles a little bit more!

Katie

For more activity ideas, click here!