Water Play

This week water is the focus of our lessons with the students and there are so many things your baby or toddler can learn through playing with water play at home.

Here are some ideas on how to blend fun with water with learning. Some things you might need are:

- different size pots and pans
- containers of different size and shape
- funnels
- scoops (use big plastic serving spoons. in fact, many kitchen utensils often come handy in child's play)
- wine corks (they float)
- a small water toy or an empty shampoo bottle
- food coloring added to liquids offer different colors (you can buy them in a baking section of your supermarket)
- tongs (try to find ones covered with plastic or rubber as the metal ones can be quite sharp)

Obviously, water is going to get messy with all the splashing, otherwise it wouldn't be so much fun! So, choose a play area carefully. During warm weather days setting up outside makes clean up easy. If you can’t go outside place the objects in the tub without filling the tub up and make a mess in there.

If your little one is a little older you can play with water using large pots and containers placed on a table and cover the floor under the table with a large plastic tablecloth.

Examples To work on your child’s coordination skills:
- "fish out" wine corks (or other floating objects) with a scoop, tongs or just fingers
- try counting them out loud when you place them into a container
- fill up and squirt water with a shampoo bottle, try aiming at some light weight objects that could fall when you hit them with the water, like toy soldiers or cars (or even those useful wine corks)
To work on your child’s color and observation skills
- fill up different-size containers with water to different levels and pour the water out into other containers through funnels.
- add some color to the water with food coloring and learn colors while you are playing. They will also be learning how fun and interesting it is to mix colors.
Imaginative play with water:
- play "fishing" in the tub
- give dolls a bath, washing their hair
- play wash the dishes
So go on, start splashing - water can be fun all year around!

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/