Fun with water beads!
4 year olds and preschoolers really love scooping and pouring and experimenting.
Some of the things we have found fun for scooping are oats, rice and water beads!
We have a big tub that's actually an under-bed storage box but is perfect for putting outside and filling with interesting things.
Yesterday we put some water beads in, a couple of cups, a bowl, a spoon and a silicon pastry brush.
Vinnie had loads of fun just scooping the beads into the different containers. Then he decided he wanted to try and get the same amount of beads in both cups.
He discovered that when you put them in the sun, you could see the shadow of the beads through the plastic cup. Great measuring practice!
Then the plastic dinos and some jugs of water were added to the mix! After that we thought maybe some ice cubes would be fun in there! Vinnie thought about whether they would melt. As it was a hot day he thought they would and that the water would get colder. Good bit of science ;)
We got some pegs out to see if it was possible to pick up the water beads with a peg. Of course this is great fine motor practice but also we discovered that some of the pegs were better than others. The plastic pegs were too slippery and the beads just sprang out of them.
One of the wooden pegs was too tightly sprung and crushed the beads, and one peg was just right!
We also had fun squishing the beads with our hands, and Vinnie even put his feet in with them.
A really good fun hour in the garden with loads of learning opportunities! We really recommend these water beads. We got ours here: Water Beads
(amazon affiliate link).
We keep them in a sealed tub between uses and have only used a small amount of the tub so far - you can even put them out in the sun so they shrink down and can be re-grown!
Hope this gives you some fun inspiration for a preschool and young children activity.
(Obviously if your child puts things in their mouth, this isn't a good activity for them! Always keep the unsoaked water beads away from children too, if swallowed they then expand and could make children very unwell.)
Some of the things we have found fun for scooping are oats, rice and water beads!
We have a big tub that's actually an under-bed storage box but is perfect for putting outside and filling with interesting things.
Yesterday we put some water beads in, a couple of cups, a bowl, a spoon and a silicon pastry brush.
Vinnie had loads of fun just scooping the beads into the different containers. Then he decided he wanted to try and get the same amount of beads in both cups.
He discovered that when you put them in the sun, you could see the shadow of the beads through the plastic cup. Great measuring practice!
Then the plastic dinos and some jugs of water were added to the mix! After that we thought maybe some ice cubes would be fun in there! Vinnie thought about whether they would melt. As it was a hot day he thought they would and that the water would get colder. Good bit of science ;)
We got some pegs out to see if it was possible to pick up the water beads with a peg. Of course this is great fine motor practice but also we discovered that some of the pegs were better than others. The plastic pegs were too slippery and the beads just sprang out of them.
One of the wooden pegs was too tightly sprung and crushed the beads, and one peg was just right!
We also had fun squishing the beads with our hands, and Vinnie even put his feet in with them.
A really good fun hour in the garden with loads of learning opportunities! We really recommend these water beads. We got ours here: Water Beads
(amazon affiliate link).We keep them in a sealed tub between uses and have only used a small amount of the tub so far - you can even put them out in the sun so they shrink down and can be re-grown!
Hope this gives you some fun inspiration for a preschool and young children activity.
(Obviously if your child puts things in their mouth, this isn't a good activity for them! Always keep the unsoaked water beads away from children too, if swallowed they then expand and could make children very unwell.)
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