Water play for Baby

Keeping little R entertained while we bake is easy with water!

 

Making Cork Boats with Colourful Shape Sails

A friend gave me a big bag of corks. The most obvious thing to do was play around in a big tub of water. We watched them float. We laughed at them pop up through the surface when we pushed them under. We blew them over the surface and had cork boat races.

Then we talked about how they looked like little boats and how we could make them look more like boats. "Let's make some sails" was the joyous suggestion.

So we chose six shapes.

Colourful Shapes

We picked six corks and found some cocktail sticks.

Corks and Cocktail Sticks

And we watched them float, tip and capsize.

Circle Sail on Cork Boat

Triangle Sail on Cork Boat

Heart Sail on Cork Boat

Then we made a giant sail which, to my surprise, worked!

Huge Pink Sail

And then the corks were under attack!

Trying to Cut a Cork with Plastic Scissors

 

Monday Morning Mess

We just had a great time on the balcony with a tub of dirt, a tub of water, various empty containers and a couple of big diggers. I'm hoping the sun will stay warm enough to dry out the mud so I can sweep it away later, last time it took a few days!

B dried off while inspecting his recently thawed out cars (thank you Imagination Tree for this brilliant idea) and nibbling on a biscuit. He was brushed off and ready for lunch in no time.

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Coloured Foam

I had read a few things about shaving foam and the benefits of using it as a new sensory experience. It's fun, interesting and clean. So I jumped on the band wagon and bought some. We had fun squishing it, blowing it, throwing it around and painting our faces with it. Then I decided to make a cloud jar. There are also some good pictures here.

The suggestion was to use food colouring and pipets, but as usual, we didn't have these things. I collected:

• empty jam jars
• shaving foam
• paint watered down in an old ice cube tray
• a plastic syringe from a fever medicine bottle
• water
• lots of newspaper

all of which was on a kids table on our plastic craft sheet that I'd layed on the floor. B doesn't like to make a big mess, but the risk of spills was high.

I expected excitement at the foam in the jar, interest in the paint as it hit the foam, comments about the water changing colour. So, reminding myself to stay quiet and let him do the work, I watched with baited breath for the result.

The excitement I felt was not matched by B's! He was so concentrated on using the syringe to get all the paint out of the ice cube tray and make it shoot through the foam that the colours mixing and foam changing was put in on the sideline. However, he worked his hands well during the 30 minutes this activity took, and he enjoyed gaining expertise in paint sucking and shooting! I'll have to find more things to do with the tray and syringe that don't involve aiming it around the room!