We love playing all kinds of learning through water on the water table. We’ve played lots of other materials too…sand, nature, and even snow have made their way into our water table. Recently, we explored a single color with water play in the water table. Monochromatic learning through water play is such a great summer play activity, but could be carried over to year round with a little mess-proofing indoors.
This activity is part of the All Things Kids blogger’s monthly series. This month we’re talking about Learning with Water Play. You can see all of the great ideas from the All Things Kids bloggers by checking out the series homepage on All Things Kids.
Learning with Color
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Monochromatic Water Bin Play
We started with our sand and water table
and filled both sides with water. We added a little bit of grape scented bubbles
for a fun scent and foamy sensory play on one side of the water table. I blew up a bunch of purple water balloons and threw those in the water table. (HINT: Blowing up water balloons can be a beast! We have a little hand air pump that came from some toy and made it much easier to blow up the water balloons!) You could use any size balloons for this activity, but I wanted small size for our transferring part of the fun.
and filled both sides with water. We added a little bit of grape scented bubbles
for a fun scent and foamy sensory play on one side of the water table. I blew up a bunch of purple water balloons and threw those in the water table. (HINT: Blowing up water balloons can be a beast! We have a little hand air pump that came from some toy and made it much easier to blow up the water balloons!) You could use any size balloons for this activity, but I wanted small size for our transferring part of the fun.
I gave the kids a little plastic shovel from our sandbox and showed the kids how to transfer the balloons from side to side in the water table.
It was fun to try to catch the balloons as they scooted around on the water surface. Transferring the balloons with a shovel is a great way to work on eye-hand coordination while encouraging bilateral hand coordination and crossing midline. Transferring from left to right is great for pre-readers, too. Kids need to scan from left to right across the page as they read and working on this skill in pre-readers is a great beginner activity.
We had so much fun talking about the different shades of purple and the term “monochromatic” as we pointed out the different shades. Our learning with water activity was a great way to spend a hot summer afternoon.
You may be interested in some of the products that we love and used in this post’s activity: