When those hot summer days come, nothing is better than some good old-fashioned water play, especially if the concrete gets hot in your area. Children love to explore with water and oftentimes, one activity will stem new ideas to expand their play with the water. Allowing our children to have different sensory experiences can help their development more than just having fun memories in the summertime heat. Continue reading to find out how you can help your child's development just by supplying some water for their play.
What is Water play?
Water play is an open-ended play experience that involves using water as the main tool to assist in games and sensory fun. Most times we bring in other aspects to help in the exploration with water, such as cups, buckets, shovels, figurines, shells, rocks, cloths, etc. Having added open-ended materials to supply the children with can allow the children to make splashes, to practice scooping the water and pouring, to learn what floats vs sinks, grip strength by squeezing a sponge and to explore their senses while playing amongst their peers or solitarily. Most times we can supply a water table to have the water play in a better-contained area, which also helps the children share the water and tools easier as they stand around the table playing together.
Water play targets all of the areas of child development
-Social/Emotional
-Physical
-Communication
-Cognitive
-Sensory
Here are 10 ways water play will benefit your child's development
1. Gross and fine motor skills
Motor skills are when the muscles of the body act and are in coordination together.
Gross motor is when we use our large muscles to help balance and move while
Fine motor is when we use our smaller muscles by using our hands like pinching, grabbing or holding a pencil to write. During water play, children are using a lot of body movements as it's a very hands-on experience.
2. Develops hand-eye coordination
When children are focusing on where to pour the water, how much can be poured into a container and at what tilt, are all things that can help develop the child's hand-eye coordination.
3. Sensory exploration
Water is a very open-ended element we can supply and can even contribute to other forms of sensory play. Sensory exploration brings awareness to the 5 senses. The feelings of the touch of the wet water, slippery objects, tasting the water or bubbles in their mouth, rose petals or essential oils in the water that give it a nice aroma, the sounds it makes when poured onto the cement or when a big splash is made are all ways children get to explore their senses.
4. Enhances concentration and focus
Carrying buckets to and from the water source can take a lot of balance, focusing and concentration, pouring into a small cup takes a lot of concentration as well. Sensory play in general usually creates more focus in children by letting them freely test things out.
5. Builds social and communication skills, emotional skills
Learning to share toys, taking turns pouring water in the water wheel, reacting to water being splashed all contribute to helping build social and emotional skills. Water play can help children express their emotions at that moment. If they need to release the anger and built-up emotions, splashing can be a great tension release. Also if they are playing alongside their peers, learning to share toys, to communicate they don't want to be splashed or creating imaginative play are ways they are working on their communication skills while playing with water.
6. Explore movement
The feeling of submerging your hands underwater is a different sensory experience altogether. Learning about gravity, pressure and force through the different elements is teaching children about physics and movement for example playing in the water. When children pour water on the ground, watching it run down the cement is teaching them about slopes and the velocity of the water (how fast it runs vs molasses which is slow) or when the water goes through the water wheel, how it sprays and spins back into the body of water below. The feeling and pressure as a child try to run through the water at the beach is teaching the different forces they need to push through to move in the water.
7. New vocabulary and language skills
New words can be introduced during water play.
Some words we can introduce are:
-Splash
-Spill
-Scoop
-Submerge
-Soak
-Slippery
-Liquid
-Pour
These are just some words we can bring into the play as the children are learning about water as a form of play they can explore.
As the children learn to share, they need to communicate with each other and practice their language skills. When they splash and play with the water many onomatopoeia words (boom, whoosh, sploosh) can begin to help babies start forming their language and speech.
8. Problem-solving skills
Water play allows children to explore many problem-solving opportunities and make discoveries about them. When they submerge a plastic figurine the water will drip off as they take it out of the water, but when they put a sponge under the water it begins to absorb the water and holds it when they take it out, then this can create a new connection in their brains that different textures will soak up liquids vs not soaking them up. This can expand to let them help you clean dishes, wash the bathtub, wash up spills, etc. (teaching Practical life activities/incorporating Montessori).
9. Introduces math and science concepts
As children explore with different objects and materials in the water they learn that some float and some sink, some containers hold more water than others and are easier to carry, while some buckets can hold more water but will be heavier. Incorporating measuring cups and spoons can bring in mathematical concepts as they get to have visuals to teach them how much water is in a 1 cup vs a 1/3 cup measuring cup, vs a teaspoon (this can be expanded to let them help you in the kitchen to cook or bake). As water is an element in nature, we can talk about many science concepts, Bring in nature to add to the water play and talk about how some animals in the wild live in water and need water in their habitat to survive, just like how we live in our houses. Having an aquarium or raising frog eggs can be great visuals to expand the habitat conversation.
10. Creativity enhanced and imaginative play
When living in the moment, creativity is enhanced. When children are doing something they enjoy, they become very engaged in the present moment. Sensory play brings children to be present as they focus on the senses they are engaging in, at that moment. By allowing this, creativity will help children to be more mindful at imaginative play, the moment which leads to happier and healthier children as a whole. As children are great at being in the present moment and sparking their creativity, imaginative play can come in, pretending to be a fish or a merpup or pretending to go on a deep ocean exploration as they snorkel at the lake. Imaginative play can be beautiful moments to witness as your child gets to openly explore their creative mind.
In Conclusion:
-Water play can be a great solitary play (alone) or with other children/adults.
-Water play is very open-ended and has many opportunities to be expanded into other areas of a child's play
-Water play can be a great mindulness activity and can teach our children to engage in the present moment
-Water play is a super easy sensory exploration (affordable, easy to supply)
-Cleanup is minimal and doesn't get things dirty
-Children love water
-The development of a child benefits greatly through water play