When my children were small, like most children, I had a hard time getting them to take a bath. (Now that they are teenagers, I am lucky if I can get them out of the shower.) We had just about every bath toy you can imagine, but few offered the inspiration to “Get in the tub!” quite like the following homemade concoctions. Your children will enjoy making them as much as they will enjoy using them and when they are finished, they will be clean. Woo hoo!

Bathtub Crayons

Materials:

1 cup grated Ivory soap or any mild soap like castile or glycerin.

*Do not use Ivory soap detergent flakes. When applied directly to the skin they can be very irritating.

1 cup warm water

Food coloring

Plastic cookie cutters

Combine water, soap and food coloring in a medium size bowl. Stir the mixture until it begins to stiffen. Remove mixture from the bowl and knead with your hands until it reaches the consistency of a thick dough. You may need to adjust the amount of water or soap. Spoon mixture into the cookie cutters and have your child mold their own shapes. Place in freezer for ten minutes. Pop them out of the cookie cutters and allow to dry overnight or until hard. Make several batches of different colors. Children can draw on the bathroom tiles or on each other.

Bathtub Finger Paints

Materials:

Mild liquid soap or baby shampoo

Cornstarch

Food coloring

Squirt bottles (Available at drugstores and craft stores.)

Pour 1/3 cup liquid soap into a squirt bottle and add 1 to 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and several drops of food coloring. Shake figurously until mixture dissolves. Make several bottles of different colors. My children liked to mix colors into cups and save their “concoctions” for days. This is a great opportunity to teach your children about color mixing.

While they are sudsing up, read them one of these three great books: Mousepaint by Ellen Stoll Walsh, Color Dance by Ann Jonas and Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni.

Critter Soaps

One of the latest novelty trends in soaps is to put a “critter”, a bug or some small object inside the soap. This is supposed to motivate children to wash themselves quite often with the soap in order to get to the object inside. These soaps sometimes cost as much as $5.00 a bar! Here is a simple and affordable way to make them yourself.

Materials:

Glycerin soap. (Available in some craft stores and on-line. Or you can use the inexpensive glycerin soaps found in supermarkets and drugstores.)

Soap colors chips or small bits of crayons. (Available at craft stores.) Optional

Essential oil or extract for scent (Optional.)

Small object or critter of your choice.

Pint sized milk or juice container, rinsed and dried.

Microwave safe measuring cup.

 
Place a large chunk of glycerin and optional color in the measuring cup. Melt in microwave until completely dissolved. Let cool slightly and add scent. (Scent and color are optional here because the really cook thing is having a bug in  your soap.) Pour into clean, empty milk/juice container about a third full or 2 inches from the bottom. Let soap harden only slightly so that when you place your object on top it will not sink.  Then pour more melted soap until the object is completely covered. You may have to remelt the soap in the measuring cup. Let the soap harden completely. Tear the container away and PRESTO, you have homemade bug soap.