Making Soap With Kids

I bought a soap-making kit back in December, hoping to make holiday presents for everyone with the kids.  We ended up going to visit my in-laws a week earlier than planned, so the soap making never happened.  Instead, we made soaps as a little Valentine's Day activity.  The girls (3.5 years old) and I had so much fun.  It's such a great sensory and fine motor exercise for kids with even a little science thrown in...

The soap starts out as a big block of glycerine which I cut up into little pieces.  The girls placed those pieces in a glass measuring cup.  They felt it and told me it was a solid.

After about 30 seconds in the microwave, the girls examined the transformation and declared that it was now a liquid.

I let the girls squeeze in the coloring and mix it up.  Then we smelled the fragrances (great sensory experience) and put in a couple drops as well.

The soap was still hot so we did the pouring together.  We put the soap into silicone baking cups and various ice cube molds we already had.

It didn't take too long for the soap to harden.  I let the girls push the pieces out of the molds and we talked about how it was a solid again.  Here are the results:

We wet the soap and stuck some of them together to make Valentines Day Cupcake Soap:

I can't tell you how excited the girls were to head to the bathroom to wash their hands.  I ended up giving them a bath so they could play with all the soaps they had made.  This was a fun activity itself as they tried to pick up the tiny slippery soap pieces.  They also made some great observations about how the soap was dissolving in the water and making it cloudy.

I've never made soap before, but it was so fun and easy that I think I may have found a new hobby.  We still have 1.5 lbs of glycerine left, so we'll be making more soap soon and trying out some different soap making ideas.

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