Let It Snow…Inside!

This week we made indoor snow following these guidelines from Modern Parents Messy Kids.  The recipe just said two boxes of cornstarch and 1 can of shaving cream.  The sizes were not specified.  After a little trial & error, we did end up with some snow.  I wanted to pass some tips along to you so you can make your own snow!

I used:
2 – 16 oz. boxes of corn starch
1+ – 10 oz. cans of Barbasol Original shaving cream.

Here’s what we discovered…

• it’s really hard to mix the shaving cream into so much corn starch.  I started with all of the corn starch in my bowl, and added the shaving cream a little at a time.  Even after I thought it was mixed well, and divided it between the kids, I still had to add more shaving cream to each of their piles.
• It would be best to mix the shaving cream into 1 box of corn starch at a time.  It will probably take closer to 3/4 can of shaving cream.  Maybe I bought the jumbo boxes of cornstarch?
• Mix it with your hands, or the handle of a wooden spoon.  Using the spoon end just didn’t work well at all.
• We added a bit more than 1 can of shaving cream in order to get our snow to clump and stick together.  Probably about 1.5 cans, but it’s hard to measure.  We still didn’t get the balls for our snowmen to hold together very well, so you could probably add up to 1 can of shaving cream per 1 box of corn starch.
• It makes a lot!  I was concerned that I would need a double batch in order to let both of my kids play at the same time.  One batch was plenty to split between two 9x13 casserole dishes!
• Prepare to clean your floor and put a smock on your kids.  It’s not a big mess, but it is “dusty”, and it will get out of the dish.  I used a plastic table cloth over my table to make cleanup easier.

I threw together a plate of sensory objects for each of kids.  I used plastic animals & barns from our Snorta! game; milk jug lids; ribbon; seashells; moving eyes; buttons; paintbrushes; popsicle sticks; glass decorator rocks/beads; small plastic toys; tin juice lids; spoons; dry pasta; and toilet paper rolls.  I wanted them to be able to “decorate” a snow man but also just play in the snow.  The objects that were not specific to other toys or games went into a Ziploc for future snow play.

Mixing the snow took longer than I anticipated.  My kids didn’t help with this step, but got a little bored waiting. 

Elaine wanted a snowman but we had trouble getting the balls to hold together well enough for her to decorate.  She then enjoyed burying and playing with her other toys, and also made “flat” snowmen after patting the snow smooth.

Nolan turned out to be a sissy about having his hands dirty.  He was that way with paint too.  So…I spent a lot of time wiping his hands before he got very involved with his snow.  I also caught him trying to eat it several times.  He may have been a little too young…

Elaine’s snowman.  We played for about an hour before my kids decided that they were hungry.  We had fun, and we reserved the snow in Ziploc bags for further use on another day!

**UPDATE 2/14/13 – Today I was organizing the busy bags and discovered that our snow was full of mold.  So it does not last indefinitely!