Water Badge

• Creativity: Tie-dyeing allows children to express creativity through color and pattern choices. They can experiment with combinations and see how they turn out, encouraging them to think outside the box and develop their artistic skills.
• Fine Motor Skills: This activity involves handling small objects, such as bottles and droppers, which can help children develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
• Science Exploration: Tie-dyeing also teaches children about science concepts like color mixing and pigment strength. They can observe how primary colors combine to create secondary and tertiary colors and experiment with different dye ratios to water to create varying degrees of color intensity.
• Sense of Achievement: Completing a project, such as tie-dyeing a beach towel, can give children a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work. They can use their monogrammed towels as a tangible reminder of their creativity and hard work.
• Bonding Experience: This activity can also be an excellent opportunity for parents and children to bond over a shared creative project, working together to create a unique and personalized item that they can enjoy using for years to come.

Voilà! Monogrammed beach towels created by your color-wheel-savvy children. Enjoy the summer!

Combining sensory play and art is one of our favorite ways to get creative. This star-themed craft will appeal to kids who love water play and making beautiful masterpieces!

Materials needed:

• Primary Science® Jumbo Eyedroppers with Stand
• Bleeding tissue paper
• Small pots half-filled with water
• Coffee filter stars
• Toothpicks
• Oven pan or deep tray to contain the mess

The Set Up

With an activity like this, it’s always good to be proactive and avoid too much mess. I used a large silicone craft mat but then also had a deep oven pan to color the stars in. To prepare the materials I simply added water to the small pots and tore the bleeding tissue paper into small pieces (3 of each color). It really helps to have the Jumbo Eyedroppers in the stand for easy access and minimal mess.

How the Activity Works

The first stage of the activity involves inviting your child to add the pieces of bleeding tissue paper to the small pots of water- one color in each pot. The process of scrunching up the paper, dropping it in the water, and then using the toothpicks to squish the color out of the paper, is so much sensory and fine motor fun. As we did this, we spoke lots about the different colors, using descriptive words, and asking each other questions to stimulate the conversation.

After my little one had finished coloring her water, she picked out the pieces of bleeding tissue and got a blank coffee filter star ready. To add color to the white star she simply used the matching color Jumbo Eyedropper and squirted on the colored water. She loved seeing the color being absorbed by the star and gave out the cutest little gasps as it spread.

It was great to see my preschooler naturally experimenting with color mixing. She watched as the colors slowly seeped into one another and made new colors. Again, this was good for her sensory confidence and also her vocabulary. It is so important to keep the conversation freely flowing and to ask simple prompt questions during activities like this. For example, I would say to her ‘do you know what will happen if you squirt yellow on top of the blue’? You’ll be amazed at how much additional learning can happen through activity discussions with kids.

The Jumbo Eyedroppers are perfectly designed for little hands. The large handle means that the child has to engage those all-important fine motor muscles to transfer the water in and out of the tip. It is great that a fun hands-on activity like this can lend itself to building the hand strength needed for writing further down the line!

Once all three stars had been filled with the color we left them to dry on some kitchen towel. But the play was not yet over! My daughter continued to play with the water in the pots and oven pan for a long time! She mixed all of the leftover colors together and just enjoyed the simple act of filling, emptying, and refilling the pots… over and over again! What’s your favorite way to combine sensory play and art? We’d love some more ideas to try!

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!