SENSORY PLAY FOR KIDS

The PERFECT sensory play experience for a hot Summer’s day!

Over the school holidays I set this frozen water play experience up for Indi. It is a low cost, fun and simple activity that will keep little minds busy for hours. Not only do they look AMAZING, but these frozen water balls are also a great learning opportunity to teach children about the basic scientific principles of matter, all in a play based way.

My Indi played with hers for hours. Since the balls were so large, we used a spare toothbrush with a cup of water to help free our little creatures that were frozen inside.

HOW TO SET UP THIS PLAY EXPERIENCE 

YOU NEED:

  • Balloons
  • Glitter
  • Food colouring
  • Small plastic animals to place inside the balloons.

NOTE:  If you are doing this for babies, it may be best to ensure the objects are large enough to be played safely with, or just skip that part and let them experience the frozen water fun.

PROCEDURE:

  1. Begin by placing the small object to ‘freeze inside the deflated balloon.
  2. Add a little glitter if desired and a few drops of food colouring BEFORE filling with water.
  3. Once everything you need is inside the balloon, fill with water (as you would a water balloon) and tie balloon.
  4. Shake well to mix the food colouring and glitter
  5. Freeze overnight.
  6. Once frozen solid remove the outer balloon (just snip and peel away) let your little one enjoy the sensory play experience!

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES:

This is a great incidental learning opportunity to teach your child the basics of matter – changing from frozen to liquid form. To extend learning further you can also ask your toddler to think of other ways to help get their plastic insect or reptile out of the frozen egg. You can encourage basic scientific principles of observation and prediction by looking at what happens if you leave it in the sunny spot, predicting what colour the water will turn once everything is melted or by predicting how long it would take for all of the ice to melt. The learning opportunities are endless!

For more simple play based ideas you can do at home you may like this post HERE.

Or for those interested you may like to check out my Teachers Pay Teachers Store for some fun early childhood ideas HERE. 

Have fun playing and creating with your little monkeys, love ness X