The more varied your child’s play experiences are, the better off they’ll be! Enter, water, the most common substance found on Earth. Essential to all forms of life, it’s also an essential component of your toddler and preschooler’s playtime. Lifting, pouring, carrying, and splashing water build gross motor skills, while scooping and squeezing build fine motor skills. Water play also supports hand-eye coordination and balance, and, when done with friends, encourages cooperation, sharing, and turn taking. Water play with toys can build vocabulary, measurement, early science skills, and so more. Plus, water play activities can be adjusted to be either calming or energizing. Are you in? Make a splash, with one of our favorite wet n’ wild activities today:
1. Fill ‘Er Up! Set various plastic containers in a large plastic bin or tray. Include smaller cups, larger pitchers, and everything in between. Fill a few of the containers with water (food coloring makes water play extra fun) and watch as your child transfers water from one container to another. Turkey basters, eye droppers, wooden spoons, and swizzle sticks make for a fun challenge.
2. Sort It Out! Fill a large plastic bin with water and add a set of colorful items – math counters, letter tiles, pom poms, etc. Provide a scooper, spoon, tongs, and bowls and see if your little one can find and sort the items into the bowls by color.
3. Soup’s Up! Walk the backyard with your child, looking for items to add to their “soup”. Choose leaves, rocks, flower petals, dirt… then drop the ingredients into a large plastic bowl and stir! See if your kiddo can scoop their soup into smaller plastic bowls.
4. Sink or Float? Fill your bin with water and collect a variety of items from around the house or the backyard. Ask your child to hypothesize, or make a guess, about which items will sink and which will float, then test their theories! Things to try: rocks, sheets of paper, paperclips, toy cars, plastic blocks…
5. Coffee Shop! Fill your bin with water and provide plastic cups, saucers, spoons, and scoopers. Place your order and watch as your child fills the cup with pebble or dirt “grounds”, stirs them, and pours you a cuppa.
6. Go Fish! Fill your tub with floating foam fish and see if your fisherman can “catch” them with a small net or spoon.
7. Car Wash! Muck up your kiddo’s trike or play car, then fill a bucket with sudsy water, large sponges, and rags, and watch as they spiff up their rides!
8. Bowl O Bubbles! Pour a bit of dish washing liquid into your bin, add water and a few drops of food coloring (different colors, please!), and let your little one loose with differently sized bubble wands.
9. Sponge Toss! Assign each child a sponge color, then drop them into a bowl of water and show them how to squeeze them dry. Practice dropping and squeezing, then add another (large) bin or bowl full of water and see if your child can toss their sponge in.
10. Color Lab! Use food coloring to color one cup each of red, yellow, and blue water. Show your colorful kiddo how to mix red and blue to make purple, red and yellow to make orange, green and blue to make light blue, green and red to make yellow. Then let them experiment, pouring and mixing their own custom colors.
Fun for all ages, there’s no end to the ways kids can play with water. So set up your bins and scoopers today and go get wet!
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