Water Fun

SPLASH! These hot days make me think about the pool… the ocean… even a jumping puddle would be nice!

Sheila Milnes from Pennsylvania State University is a huge proponent of water play for children. She explains that water play can improve children’s physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development. For example, water is a fantastic way for children to learn about scientific principles such as sinking, floating, melting, solids, and liquids. Add manipulatives, and the young scientists can observe and explore the physical properties of water, snow, ice and other sensory items.

A water table will offer multiple opportunities for learning and play.

According to Milnes, there are three stages of water play: functional, constructive, and dramatic. In functional play, a child plays with water and explores it with his senses, realizing what can be done with it. In constructive play, “children move from exploring water to using it for play--for example, pouring water over a toy person and pretending he is taking a shower.” When children begin using water to act out a story, they have moved into dramatic play. As the children move from one stage to the next, their physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development will improve. A water table will lend itself to all three stages of play, with fun and learning at every stage!

Check out The Adventurous Child for more information on water tables and neat ways to use them.

What can be done better outdoors than indoors?

For today’s blog, I am going to focus on messy things and why it is so much better to do them outdoors. I think of a preschool art easel and how much work teachers go to indoors, taping newspaper on the walls and the floors to make sure if children splatter paint or spill things, they can easily clean up the space. Outdoors, if we are using a biodegradable paint, there is no need for this. We can simply let the paint hit the grass and biodegrade. Also, when it comes to clean up with an outdoor art easel, you just take your water hose and squirt it down. Sensory tables frequently have messy items put in them that require clean up after use. Many times the items we put in a sensory table are biodegradable, such as bird seed, cornmeal, oats, etc. Take messy sensory table activities outdoors, so when children spill things the local birds and creatures will clean up after them. This brings wildlife to your playground, which is another important asset to an outdoor classroom. If you have ideas or questions on things that can be done better outdoors, please comment or contact me.