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Today I have a very simple engineering activity for you to try. We love to play with blocks, LEGO, and ZOOB at our house – anything that gets the kids thinking creatively, critically, and scientifically! Today we tried a foam block engineering challenge and the kids absolutely loved it.
Foam Block Engineering Challenge
All you need is shaving cream, foam blocks, and a creative mind! The shaving cream is the glue that sticks the blocks together. It is easy to mix up and easy to clean up!
Squirt some shaving cream into a plastic container. Color with food coloring if you wish. Grab a paint brush and start building!
You can give your kids all kinds of foam block engineering challenges. Here are some that we enjoyed:
Tallest structure:
Most horizontal structure (the kids were amazed that they could build horizontally!):
Tool with which to destroy the structures (he is big into arrows lately):
I chose to do this activity in the bathtub since it was bath night anyway and I didn’t want to clean up a big mess elsewhere. It worked like a charm! Once they were done playing I filled up the tub and washed the blocks along with the kids! Although they were a little cramped in there, they had a blast 🙂
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Hi–stopping over from Good Tips Tuesday to see your post and give you a comment. What a neat idea! It looks like a whole lot of messy fun 🙂
Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate it 🙂
Love this simple way to get some minds going. My kiddos both love Legos, never thought of using the shaving cream with the blocks to create a “glue”. Thanks so much for sharing with us on our Facebook Share Day. Hope to see you again next week. Pinned!
Thanks for stopping by! We love building with all kinds of different things, too 🙂
Great idea! Thanks for linking with Tuesday Tutorials #pintorials
Thank you!
Thx for linking this up at the Thoughtful Spot!
You’re welcome, thanks for the visit!
Such a great idea – and I love that you can do it in the bathtub and have an easy clean up! I’m featuring this post in this week’s roundup from the Love to Learn Linky! Thanks for linking up – best, Sue
Haha, they were a little cramped in there, but it did make for easy clean up! Thanks for featuring it! Love your Linky each week 🙂
Very creative! Thanks Crystal for linking up with the Frugal Mommas Linky! I’m pinning & sharing your posts. Did you make the Usborne books banner? It looks like a good one – I’m an affiliate myself.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing! My sister-in-law actually designed the Usborne books banner as well as my entire website. She is amazing 🙂
My 5 year old would absolutely love this activity! Come to think of it so would the other kids! … Who am I kidding? I want to give it a try!! Thankyou so much for linking up with me on #busydoinglife I am loving finding such cool activities to try out with my girls!!
This looks brilliant – what fun and so creative! I think my girls would absolutely love it, thanks for sharing, Becky #busydoinglife
This looks fantastic! I love the idea of doing it in the bath too, makes it so much easier. I need to find some foam blocks to do this! 🙂 x
Looks like a great time was had engineering! Thanks so much for sharing at Busy Doing Life. 🙂
What a fun idea! Definitely a good way to let kids experiment on weight and structure! Thanks for sharing on Toddler Fun Friday
I love that you used a common product (shaving cream) as the glue! I think it teaches kids to not just see things as one dimensional. During my career as an engineer, you’d be surprised how many times the simple solution was the right solution.
Great insight, thank you for sharing!