Effortless fun with foam shapes in 37* easy steps!
*It doesn't take 37 steps at all. That was a bare faced lie. But it is very simple!
A friend of mine sent me a picture of some foam shapes on her window that she had been playing with with her son. She suggested I might like to do it as one of my many activities with Dexter (and right she was). I originally planned on waiting until he was a bit older as what she did was a bit advanced for him but I decided to strip it right down to the most basic of basics…
What you’ll need… Some thin craft foam of various colours Cookie cutter shapes (optional) Scissors
I started off using just the four basic colours, red, yellow green and blue and four basic shapes, square, circle, triangle and rectangle. Just press the cookie cutter shapes into the foam. It wont cut through but it will mark it deep enough to use as guides of where to cut. (If you don’t have cookie cutters you can draw round things or draw your own shapes but you will have pen lines on the foam) Once I’d cut out the basic shapes, I did a few extra of the other shapes just to finish of the sheets of foam that were half cut.
The great thing about these are that they only need a bit of water to stick on the bath and they float too. So simple.
At first, all Dexter wanted to do was chew on them as his top teeth are coming through but he soon got involved in taking them off the side of the bath and chasing them around the water.
They do seem to stick quite well to babies….
And you can stick them to each other which means you can make all sorts of pictures with them (that blue thing is a fish).
The possibilities with these are endless. Like I said, I’ve started easy so that they can be used to help teach basic shapes and colours but depending on your child’s age and abilities they can be used for almost anything. You could make different sets for holidays with christmas and easter etc, summer with flowers, butterflies and so on. You could do different size geometric shapes, lines, zig-zags, waves to make all sorts of pictures. You could also do animals, dinosaurs, trees, fairies, cityscapes with buildings and cars, galaxies with aliens, planets and stars. You could even do letters and numbers and teach literacy and maths and you don’t just have to stick to bath time. You can do it in the bath with just a tub of water to wet them, you could do it on the patio door or windows, you could use white boards, your fridge door or even take them on car journeys to play with on the passenger windows. We had lots of fun with these and I’m sure you will too. Please feel free to comment and share any other ideas you have for these foam shapes. I’d be very interested see what else you come up with.
Thanks for reading.
