DIY Foam Bath Toys - Guest Post from Raise A Boy

Today, I get a taste of how the other half lives. As the mom of three girls, I have often thought it would be fun to trade places for a day with a mom of boys. Well I have done the next best thing! I have Melanie from Raise A Boy here to share a fun activity that she made for her son. If you have a boy or a girl, you will find lots more great ideas like this on Raise A Boy. Welcome Melanie!

Hi Mess for Less readers! I'm Melanie from Raise A Boy and am so excited to share these new bath toys I recently made for my son.



Bath time used to be my little one's favorite part of the day - given enough toys and bubbles he could have spent hours in there. Lately, however, he hasn't wanted to take a bath so I decided to make him some new toys to get him interested again. He has this bath time book which is super cute and has sea creatures that stick to the walls when wet. They just looked like foam which gave me an idea. The next time I was at Michaels I found this stack of foam for super cheap (plus a 40% off coupon) so I went for it. And sure enough - when it's wet the foam sticks to the bath tub walls! I love when ideas work the way I think they will!

 

So what did I do with this sticky foam? First, I created a bunch of shapes out of different colors. Now bath time is also learning colors and shapes time.



Then, I got carried away and made some car and road stickies just for fun!



The possibilities are really only limited by your artistic capabilities (though you can get stencils for lots of things). Here are just a few ideas you could run with.

Educational

• Cut out letters to practice spelling words in the tub or write love notes for the next person
• Cut out numbers to practice math problems

Just for Fun

• If you had a girl, how fun would it be to create paper dolls that you could customize?
• A Mr. Potato Head
• Trains

If you would like, you can download my Shape Template or the Car Template. Just a word of caution: These are very thin pieces of foam that are easily chewable. Make sure your child is over the biting everything stage or you'll have to watch him closely - not that I'm speaking from experience or anything. Thanks Vicky for letting us post on your site today!


Thank you Melanie! I think this will help out a lot of moms. I know bath time can be quite a battle in some homes. I love how these were easy and inexpensive to make and you can use the foam for so many other things too. Thanks for the jumping off points - my girls would love some paper (foam) dolls! Here are some of my favorite posts from Raise A Boy:
Latch Activity BoardPhotocopied Hands and FeetHomemade Peanut Butter Bars