Make a Soap Carving

Have your child imitate the masters or create her own work of art with a bar of soap! This is a great project to follow a museum visit, or to make as a gift for a special occasion, such as Mother's Day.

What You Need:

• Plastic knife
• A soft bar of soap such as Dove
• Marker
• Newspaper
• Pretty ribbon

What You Do:

1. Help your child decide what she would like to carve. Perhaps she would like to try and imitate a famous piece of sculpture, or maybe she feels like creating her own original work. Popular choices include animals, cars and people.
2. Have her use a marker to trace the basic shape of the idea onto the soap.
3. Using a plastic knife, gently scrape away the soap to create the desired shape. Be sure to work over newspaper.
4. Once your child is satisfied with the results, have her wrap her soap art with the ribbon. Save it for a special occasion, or give it as a gift!

It's possible that your child may become frustrated if her original artistic vision does not pan out. Urge her to remember that ideas often change once an artist begins to work. What started out as a dog carving may actually turn out to be a great boat!