Soap Foam Dough {Sensory Dough Recipe for Kids}

How to make soap foam dough - a fun homemade play dough alternative for kids! It's a great sensory dough recipe for kids of all ages.

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We have created a new favorite sensory dough recipe: soap foam dough! 

This soap foam dough quickly became a favorite of my youngest son's. It is moldable like play dough, but snaps cleanly like silly putty. 

It is super simple to make, uses only two ingredients (or three if you want colored dough), and takes only a few minutes to prepare. 

It uses ingredients you likely already have on hand, requires no cooking, and is easy to clean up since it just melts when water is added to it. 

Intrigued yet? 

I know you are. 

What is Soap Foam Dough?

Soap foam dough grew out of my kids' love for soap foam sensory bins. It makes a lovely alternative to play dough and is way easier to make. Like I mentioned above, there's no cooking involved, like traditional play dough. There's also no weird ingredients that you might not have on hand (like cream of tartar).

It's just a simple homemade play dough alternative that's a fun sensory experience for kids.

My three year old wanted to make red, purple, and green dough. Isn't it lovely?

But what is really neat about soap foam dough is that it snaps cleanly like silly putty.

Since soap foam dough can snap in half like it does, it makes it the perfect sensory dough for exploring fractions. Or for stacking.

The dough looks even more pretty when the different colors are combined. The end result is a beautiful marbled dough.

This dough cleans up really easily since it is made with soap, but before cleaning up, why not turn the soap foam dough into some colorful, messy oobleck. Simply add some water to the soap foam dough until it has an oobleck like texture (usually it's a 1:1 ratio of water and cornstarch).

Ready to make soap foam dough? Find out how to make this sensory dough below.

How to Make Soap Foam Dough - A Fun Sensory Dough for Kids!

This soap foam dough is just one of the beautiful activities you can find in my book Pop! Squirt! Splash!, but to give you a little taste of what you will find in the book, I will show you how to make this beautiful dough.

To make soap foam dough, you will need:

• 2 cups of foaming hand soap (or make your own soap foam)
• 3/4 cup of cornstarch
• 1/4 tbsp of liquid watercolors (optional)

To make soap foam dough, combine the foaming hand soap with the liquid watercolors in a bowl. I actually make my own foaming hand soap with castile soap. Slowly add the cornstarch. Mix and knead the dough until it is smooth. You may need to sprinkle up to 1/2 tbsp more cornstarch into the dough or add extra soap if needed. It should not be sticky and the dough should snap in half when you put pressure on the ball of dough. Here's a video tutorial for making the dough:

Other Sensory Dough Recipes to Try

Edible Sludge Sensory Play

Sand Foam Dough

Erupting Soap Foam Dough

Love this activity? Well, you can find it and many more wonderful hands-on activities for kids in the brand new book Pop! Squirt! Splash! Hands-on Activities for Kids Using Soap, Water, & Bubbles! Or take a peek at these other fabulous activities:

Soap Shaving Bookmark from Sugar Aunts

Hands-on Activities Using Soap, Water, & Bubbles from Where Imagination Grows

Water Play: Sorting Land & Water Animals from Still Playing School

Floating Soap Boats from Fireflies & Mudpies

DIY Angry Birds Knock Down Game from Lalymom

Gross Motor Color Mixing from House of Burke

Jell-O Soap Foam Sensory Play from Fun-A-Day!

Soap Cloud Painting from Mamas Like Me

Fine Motor Skills Play Dough Window Art

You're going to love this simple fine motor skills play dough window art activity. It's quick to set up and super engaging for toddlers and preschoolers.

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Playing with play dough is great for developing fine motor skills and both of my boys absolutely love playing with it. You can press it, roll it, cut it, stamp it...the possibilities are endless when it comes to play dough!

Over the years, I've made a lot of play dough. And we've done plenty of play dough activities. Usually though we play with play dough on a horizontal surface such as table or tray. And honestly, that isn't terribly exciting after awhile. Sometimes you need to shake things up and try something different though. Or make a simple little tweak like we did.

To switch things up, we went vertical instead of horizontal by placing the play dough on windows. Yes, really. It ended up being a fun new way to explore with play dough and my boys loved it! 

So if you're ready to try a new twist on some fine motor skills play dough play, give this simple window art idea a try. 

What You'll Need for this Fine Motor Skills Play Dough Window Art Activity

This fine motor activity is quick and easy to put together. You really just need one material. You can probably guess what it is based on the title of this activity (ahem, play dough). But here's a written list of what you'll need anyway:

• Play dough, preferably in at least two different colors - We love this no-cook play dough recipe from The Imagination Tree. It's our favorite!

• A large window - It's window art after all so you kind of need a window, right? It will be the play surface for this play dough activity.

• Cookie cutters (optional) - Your kids might want to cut out specific shapes of play dough to create their art. Or you might want to use them to get better buy-in from your kids (e.g., using alphabet cookie cutters to interest a hyperlexic child). Besides, cookie cutters are a great tool for working on different fine motor skills so they're a nice addition to this activity, if you want. We have this cookie cutter set.

Once you have the materials gathered, you can create an invitation to play like I did if you'd like. Simply place some of the play dough on the window, modeling how to use the materials to create window art. Then see if your kids would like to join you. 

Play dough sticks to windows when a slight bit of pressure is applied. It will, however, leave your windows a bit cloudy and dirty looking when the kids are done playing. I simply gave my boys a spray bottle of water and a cloth and they happily cleaned up the mess afterwards.

Using Play Dough on Windows is a Great Way to Build Fine Motor Skills with Kids!

My oldest, J, loved to rip off small pieces of play dough and press them into little "dots" on the window. It's a good way to work on finger isolation!

Sometimes he would peel off his play dough "dots" and move them around. It's also a good way to work on pincer grasp.

Depending on how much play dough is used and how hard it is pressed against the window, the natural light will stream through. The play dough does become semi-transparent in places, as you can see below.

Both of my boys also loved experimenting with sticking large blobs of play dough to the window. It sticks pretty well too. K, my youngest, really enjoyed cutting the play dough on the vertical surface using a plastic play dough tool.

Play dough is great for fine motor skills practice, as you can see with this activity. Plus, playing with play dough on a vertical surface is new and exciting. My boys ended up having a blast with this activity! Here's my favorite photo of the activity.

More Art Ideas for Working on Fine Motor Skills with Kids

This play dough window art activity is part of the monthly Light & Reflections series where a few bloggers get together to share fun ways for kids to explore and learn using light and mirrors. Some activities might use natural light and others mirrors or light tables. The theme for this month was art. Here are the other art ideas from this month's series:

No Mess Painting for Toddlers on the Light Table from Happily Ever Mom

Sand Art on the Light Table from Still Playing School

Glue Art on the Light Table from Where Imagination Grows

You can also find more fine motor activities here if you need more inspiration beyond play dough.

But, hopefully, you'll give this fine motor skills play dough window art activity a try. It's super simple to set up (just need play dough and a window!) and engaging for kids of all ages.

Citrus Scented Easy Dough {150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids Book Review}

My boys love playing with play dough and other sensory doughs. So when I was given the chance to review the new 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids book by the oh-so-talented Asia of Fun at Home With Kids, I was super excited to see a sensory dough called "Easy Dough" that looked fun and, best of all, easy. Plus, we had never tried anything like it before! I was especially intrigued by her variations on the easy dough, in particular, the lavender scented one. However, it was the middle of the day on a cold, snow-filled day, so I needed to brighten things up. I decided to make citrus scented easy dough based on her scented variation of the easy dough recipe.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. I was also sent a copy of the book 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids by the publisher in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own.

But first, I'm going to tell you why you want the book 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids.

I've been following Asia's blog Fun at Home with Kids since she pretty much started it. Her photographs always drew me in and her creativity always amazed me. Plus, I blame her for getting me addicted to liquid watercolors. So, of course, I was excited to see what her book would have in store. Honestly, it did not disappoint. The things that I love most about this book are:

• The gorgeous photographs. Just like I expect to find on her blog, the book is filled with beautiful, color photos of each activity.
• The organization of the book. Every activity has a checklist of the materials you need, the target age, the time it takes to prepare, and step-by-step instructions. I mean, how easy is that?!
• The allergy coding. We don't have allergies in our household, but I do know lots of friends who have to be careful with nuts, dairy, and gluten. So having that clearly defined allergy section for each activity is a definite plus.
• The variety of activities. There is something for everyone in this book. And there is something for every age: babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and school age. So from sensory play to homemade toys (love the puppet theatre!) to homemade art supplies, this book has it all!
• The variations section was by far my favorite. I absolutely loved how the activities had a section for different ways to modify the activity. For example, the easy dough that we tried from the book, had five different variations to try! You certainly cannot be bored with this book in your arsenal!

So to sum it up: I love this book!

Since the variations sections were one of my favorite parts about the book's layout, I am here to show you how we took one of her variations and, yup, did a variation on it. Ha! We tried the easy dough recipe. If you already own the book (or when you do!), then you can find the full recipe on page 50.

Just like the name suggests, easy dough is ridiculously easy to make. I made three colors and scents: pink grapefruit, mandarin orange, and lemon. I followed her recipe for lavender easy dough, but I just substituted grapefruit, orange, and lemon essential oils instead. The smelly absolutely yummy!

And just as I had anticipated, the boys couldn't wait to dig in and play with it! J was like, "I'll take this one please!"

Both boys picked up a ball of easy dough and gave it a whiff. Mmmm...if only it was a scratch and sniff screen, eh?

J was more into playing with the easy dough than K, so J happily mixed all three colors together. As Asia noted in her book, the easy dough is a bit crumbly, but that didn't seem to bother J. The messier the better!

And look how pretty it is when you mix all of those colors together!

And of course when baking soda is involved, one must make it fizz! So I decided to give this baking soda and vinegar tip (also from Fun at Home with Kids) a try! Asia is totally right. It does make the best bubbly reaction ever.

You can find the full recipe for this easy dough in the beautiful book 150+ Screen-Free Activities for Kids by Asia Citro. Here is where you can purchase a copy of the book:

Amazon US

Amazon CANADA

Amazon UK

From your local US bookstore

Book Depository

Fishpond AU

Barnes & Noble

Messy Pretend Play with Lemon Play Dough

Play dough is our go-to sensory activity for when I don't have any sensory activities planned or I need to keep the boys busy while cooking supper. That's why you will always find a bag of homemade play dough in our fridge. Recently I made lemon scented play dough, which ultimately led to this messy lemon meringue pie pretend play prompt.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

For this play dough invitation, I set out:

• Homemade play dough (we only ever use this no cook play dough from The Imagination Tree) scented with lemon essential oils (5-6 drops) and dyed with liquid watercolors
• Whisk
• Wood rolling pin
• Round pan - I had no pie plates around.
• Shaving cream

Playing with play dough, using the rolling pin, and whisking are all great for fine motor development. Plus, the boys get to play with real kitchen utensils. Not that kitchen utensils have ever been off limits for them.

J preferred to roll the play dough, while K commanded the whisk.

Now let's check on the progress of that meringue...ah, a stiff peak! Good whisking, K!

Then just like regular baking in our house, things got messy quickly.

No pie was ever made, but it was a lot of fun to play with!

Be sure to check out these other shaving cream ideas:

Sand Foam Dough Play Recipe

Giant Shaving Cream Rainbow

Tape Resist Mirror Painting