The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

DIY: Foam Picture Fun!

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The inspiration for this little DIY fun project came from a wonderful blog called Filth Wizardry. The writer of the blog has some wonderful, creative ideas!
First of all, I bought a packet of 20 sheets of craft foam from Tesco for £1. Bargain!

I used about half of the sheets and cut them into simple shapes- triangles, squates, rectangles, circles, stars, hearts and diamonds.

I also cut out some grass, clouds, fruit, daddy and pig (on request!) A lot of these items were also popular in her little toddler mind map. No surprise that they are still top of the list now then!

I gave her a little pot of water with a foam paintbrush (a sponge would work just the same.)

Then she set about painting the window and making it nice and wet so that the foam would stick to it. She particularly enjoyed this as we have been doing lots of redecorating recently and she immediately started to role-play.

And then the fun began! Adding the foam shapes and being filled with wonder at how they could stick to the window like that!

“Oooooo!”

Hmmmm, what to choose next?

“Cloud mummy!”

I put the shapes together to make the little pig, as requested. The foam sticks easily on top of itself, so nice effects can be made by layering and building up a picture.

Again, this was mummy’s pattern! She loved looking at it and added some matching shapes to continue the long line of rectangles.

I love how it looks like these clouds are raining!

Then, all of her own accord, she went and got a felt-tip pen and started to add to the shapes by drawing on them. Technically, in this picture, she is drawing on the window. Oops.

The finished art work. Later on it would be great to add words to the shapes to increase the learning.

Quite a mural began to appear!

She started to realise that it was easier for the foam to stick if she made it wet directly, instead of making the window wet.

And later, (like the original post from Filth Wizardry suggested) we played with these in the bath. They stuck really well onto the bath because they were soaking wet. Here you can see Daddy (with requested tummy-button!).

This is one of those simple, cheap activities that has so much potential. As she gets older it can be developed into sorting and grouping the pieces by colour and shape, counting, making repeating and symmetrical patterns, making little words by writing the alphabet on them, making more elaborate shape pictures and even cutting out her own to use too.
If you try this, let me know how it turns out. Have fun!
This idea is shared at the following places:
 

We Play

Comments

  5. Do you know, Anna, I have a packet of this foam stuff sitting in the cupboard (bargain poundshop find) and I really didn’t know what to do with it. Now I’ve been totally inspired. Can’t wait for Max for wake up from his nap! Perfect rainy day activity. Thanks!

  6. This is great. My son loves stickers and gluing collages but He always wants to take it off again. Unfortunately most of the stickers end up in pieces and he ends up heartbroken. This will be a great replacement! (And maybe my windows will be cleaner?) I just found you thorough We Play at Childhood 101. Great idea!
    Jackie
    http://www.readysetread2me.blogspot.com

  7. Oh WHAT FUN! Red Ted would ADORE this! LOVE LOVE LOVE how you used the window as a base for your foam. Brilliant. This is a FABULOUS activity.

    Thank you for posting it to Kids Get Crafty! Love discovering new ideas this way!

    Maggy
    Red Ted Art

  14. This is a fab idea! I’m rubbish at craft etc but pages like yours really help people like me to be inspired. Today we made your nativity scene and we had so much fun. Thanks for the inspiration. And it’s wonderful to find a UK based page – with refernces to shops I can actually get to! I’ll be devouring the rest of your ideas – my boys won’t know what’s hit them!!!

  16. What a great idea! Thanks for posting. I know this post is old, but found it randomly doing google search on a completely different subject, gotta love google and how it distracts so easily. I pinned it to my board, but linked it back to your blog. If you’re not okay with that, I will delete, let me know.

    tweetybird830(at)hotmail(dot)com

  19. Don’t worry about drawing on windows! It comes right off. We have window crayons that draw very well. It’s just as fun for the girls to wash the windows after.