I love when I can do an experiment with her that a) cleans up quickly with just water and b) can be done with things I already have on hand. I pulled out all the necessities and we tried our hand at shaving cream clouds with rainbow raindrops.
Here’s what you need:
- Large glass container (I used a vase but a large measuring cup or even a glass bowl could work)
- Food coloring
- Small bowls
- Water
- Eye Dropper (you could use a baby spoon if you don’t have a dropper but FAIR WARNING it will get messy)
- Old towel to lay over working surface
Cover your workspace because that food coloring will get all over…..even if your child is totally careful. Then, fill your glass container about 2/3 full with water. Top it with a big FLUFF of shaving cream for the “cloud.” In the small containers, fill them with water and add about 10 drops of food coloring to each. (NOTE: If you use less water, the “raindrops” will fall faster from your shaving cream cloud.)
Have your little one use the dropper to suck up the different colors of water and drop it onto the shaving cream cloud. That’s it! Easy peasy! As the shaving cream gets saturated, the colored drops will fall like rain into the water. You can talk to your child about how the water is like the air and the shaving cream is like the clouds. FUN SCIENCE! If your kid is like mine, they will most likely just be fascinated by the colors and that’s okay too.
This gem kept her busy for at least 30 minutes. I did end up dumping our first attempt and we tried again in a wider round vase. This one worked much better for us. Then we rinsed that one and made a third cloud too.
All in all, it was a super fun rainy day activity – everything washed up quickly and easily with warm water and we ended the morning by reading a few books about rain. Hope your kiddos love this!
Here’s a few rain titles we enjoyed today:
