Water Play

If it has been a long day, one activity the girls always love to do of an afternoon is Water Play. It could be as simple as letting them water the garden with their watering cans or giving them buckets and buckets of water to play with in the sand pit. But generally speaking, the messier they can get, the better. In fact, I find that the messier the play, the longer they play!

Here are some ideas for water play that we have enjoyed...

Planting flowers and watering them;

We did this at our Playgroup. It was a beautiful way to signal the start of spring!

Washing the dishes and utensils from their play kitchen;

This is an all-time favourite and very relaxing, it seems to calm everyone down!

(It's good practice for chores in years to come too!)

I think every child loves giving their baby a bath;

I put a bit of baby shampoo in the bath, so it smells lovely and make sure the water is nice as warm, so baby (or in this case, vintage dolly) doesn't get cold! My girls love to use a bar of soap (we don't use this in their own baths, as Liv has eczema and it would dry her skin out) - they love it when it slips out from their fingers and they have to try to pick it up out of the water;

Bubble blowing is always fun;

Great for hand-eye coordination (It took Elly a while to get the hang of it, but now she is very proud of the bubbles she blows) and they love helping to mix up the right amounts of detergent to water;


Trips to the beach;

Lately, I have been taking the girls to the beach once a week. It's easily our best day of the week. The weather is getting warmer and they love running around on the sand. They favourite thing is digging big holes right near the waters edge and seeing them fill up with water when the waves crash in.

Lastly, Water Tubs is another idea I got from my course. Filling a tub with water and placing various materials inside for the children to explore. Boats, sink-and-float objects, water-wheels etc...

Sometimes we use some pretty crude plastic sea creatures;

But it is amazing, the stories they create with these!

Other times, we use natural materials, like these sea-shells;

We're slowly adding to our sea-shell collection from our trips to the beach (seashells are hard to find these days!)... but this week, I bought a 500g bag from Bunnings for about $5 and they have played with them in the sandpit all week.

Nick has taken the girls to the park this morning, so I have set up this tub for them to play with after lunch today;

It should be a lovely afternoon...

(As my husband just reminded me, washing the car is another great afternoon activity)