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Monday, December 17, 2012

No Need for a Water Table!!


 My toddler (19 months) LOVES water!  With the cold weather moving in our time outdoors is limited.  I miss our time outdoors but that gives us the opportunity to explore more indoor play!

For this activity all you need is a kitchen sink, a chair, some fun things to play in the water with, and lots of patience to deal with a water mess!  My toddler was so engaged in this activity that she spent 30-40 intense play minutes!!  I love when she is engaged (and in ONE spot!!).

We started with filling up a bowl of water with soap (for bubbles) and a large stirring spoon. She loved stirring the water in the bowl and occasionally eating a spoon full of bubbles.  I encouraged her not to eat the bubbles by saying, "Not for your mouth, you're going to have bubbles in your belly!"  She didn't care and ate the bubbles anyway!

After stirring the bubbles wore off I filled up the entire sink and placed items around the sink that she could choose to play with.  These items included bowls, cups, spoons, and forks.  Some of the items were out of her reach.  If she saw something she wanted she would begin to grunt, "un-un."  This is an area we have been working on, using words, instead of a grunt.  When she would grunt for something I would help her by giving her the words to say, such as, "Do you want the cup? Say cup please."  If it was a word in her vocabulary she would say it, if not she would just say please.  So we strategicially put some oral language learning into our play time.

Lastly, I pulled some bath toys out that float.  We talked about the floating animals/items.  We had so much fun, made a mess, and had to change all our clothes, but it was worth it!



This activity is appropriate for many ages.  When I taught kindergarten I used a sand/water table in my classroom.  If you have more then one child at home I would encourage you to pull up two chairs so the children can interact.  This will encourage social interaction/learning, and SHARING!

This activity is done with parental supervision at all times due to a child standing on a chair and the risks that water include.  Please supervise your child while they play (plus its so much fun to see what they do and say....you might just want to join the fun too!)

For more reading about the benefits of a water table please see the informational PDF below!

Benefits of Sand and Water Table PDF






3 comments:

  1. Mackenzie has been doing this too! She will do this at the bathroom sink, and we also brought in an outdoor toy (it's called a Mud Mixer, almost like a play kitchen where you can pump water into a sink and then fill a bowl...and add dirt when you're outside...to mix in this really cute kid mixer) and she will play with that in the kitchen while I'm making dinner and doing dishes. Water is so FUN!

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  2. Water is great! I love when a child is playing so intense! But the best part of this activity is all the learning taking place, check out the PDF! Wow!! Thanks for sharing!

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  3. Love this idea:) I'm a fan of letting my tot play at the sink too - it makes for a great rainy day "water table" and is a great activity to keep tots occupied while you're cooking. My tot loves to clean her "babas" (aka pacifiers) in the sink. More on that, and a link to your great post, here: http://hintmama.com/2014/07/22/todays-hint-the-rainy-day-very-cheap-water-table/

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