Squidgy, squashy, splishy, splashy!

Water Beads

How beautiful are these little gems?! Water beads are actually designed to be used in flower arrangements and although not designed to be used as a toy are 100% non-toxic and brilliant fun! They are widely available in stores and online (I purchased these from Amazon) when you buy them they are tiny little crystals which you then soak in water to hydrate. I'm really lucky and my son isn't a big "taster" when it comes to sensory play but please make sure that when playing with these you supervise your child at all times. Now this post will be based around our second session with water beads as our first encounter was much less enjoyable and mighty stressful! I had not read enough about them to know just how bouncy these little balls of water are and within 2 minutes of starting the play I decided it would be a great idea to pour them from one container to another which resulted in them bouncing all over my living room carpet! Dylan thought this was amazing especially when he discovered they "exploded" when stood on and we couldn't pick them up as fast as he could smash them! Also in the scramble to pick them up the bowl was then knocked over another 2 or 3 times and the slippery little blighters ended up under the sofa, in the kitchen, behind the TV basically everywhere!!!

 This time we decided to opt for the safety of the water table and thankfully all the beads stayed in the table for the entire session. I was really pleased as after the disaster the first time around I was worried I would have to abandon water bead play until Dylan was older and that ment I couldn't play with them either and they really are amazing. They feel like really soft marbles and running your hand through them or even over the top of them is some how soothing and extremely hard to resist when "supervising" hehe. What I really loved about using them in the water table was being able to have one section with the hydrated beads and one section with water and beads as they look completely different when submersed, like bacteria on a slide or frogspawn even!

I felt this was a great sensory experience for Dylan as he could see how the beads appearance changed when he dropped them in the water or subsequently fished them out. Another aspect which I had not considered until we put the beads in the table was how the colour of the beads would change depending on there background, for example the beads seen here are in fact blue but when placed on the yellow table they appear green. All these factors made for a lot of discussion during this session and Dylan, although still unable to properly talk never shut up!

We then introduced a funnel to the session and let Dylan practise his fine motor skills by placing it upside down and showing him how to pop the beads inside. This for some reason was highly addictive and I found myself sitting filling the funnel long after Dylan had moved on to splashing in the other side! We also used the funnel to scoop them up and let them pour out, this was great fun to try and catch them as they flew out the bottom but unfortunately due to the uneven size it got blocked quite often. The great thing about these is they can be kept for future play and just rehydrated as and when needed, that is if they don't all end up smooshed and in a million pieces of course!

We kept ours and used them to set up this table in the garden this morning, water beads and shaving foam. I wasn't brave enough to attempt this one in the house and it turns out with good reason as it resulted in Dylan and daddy having a shaving foam fight and all of us ending up soaked but smelling lovely! This really did feel amazing but didn't really keep Dylans attention for nearly as long as just plain beads and water, I don't know wether this was due to the distraction of being outside or that despite feeling great it just didn't hold as many possibilities as the previous session, who knows!

As you can see it was definitely a messy activity and one I would save for the garden if possible but it genuinely got more fun as we got messier and we will be doing this again as long as the weather stays nice!

Get ready, get messy!

DIY Mud

Now when I started this activity my intention was to provide a stimulating and educational play session where we would learn about seeds and how things grow. In reality what took place was a mud bath! I think Dylan is still too young for this kind of thing but we had great fun nonetheless. I just used indoor potting soil that I already had and the seeds are cat grass which can be bought easily from any garden centre. I chose cat grass as it grows very quickly (only 2 to 3 days from planting to growth) and I naively thought we would actually have a chance to let it grow! Firstly we raked the soil and played around with digging and transferring it from pot to pot which is right up Dylan's street so this step lasted a while. Then we sprinkled over the packet of seeds, then put them back in the packet, then sprinkled them again, then put.... I think i've made my point! Dylan loved examining the seeds by squeezing and pinching them and when I showed him he could push them down in the soil so they dissapeared his face lit up and he eagerly copied something which i'm sure must help with hand eye co-ordination.

The next step was without a doubt the cause of my downfall! I decided that it would be a really good idea to let Dylan water the seeds while I explained how we had to give the seeds a little drink to help them grow. A toddlers definition of "a little" is very different from my own and that endearing need toddlers have to repeat an activity which is enjoyable is something I had not taken into account. Dylan loved watering the seeds and I was forced to fill the watering can 3 times at which point the seeds began floating and I became fully aware that my "lesson" had not gone as planned!

Unwilling to add anymore water to the mix we then began pouring the water back into the can and re-watering the soil this activity kept Dylan's attention for a very substantial time and really
wasn't as messy as you might imagine. Saying that my partner who was home at the time was not quite as relaxed about the whole thing, he has been present at all other messy sessions and I have never seen him react the way he did to the mud! I had not anticipated this reaction and I can only assume it was psychological but something about the mud in the house made him very uncomfortable so I decided to throw him in the deep end! Now I didn't do this because i'm mean (well not entirely) I did this because messy play is important as it introduces your child to a huge range of textures and helps develop important motor skills. If a child senses a negative vibe from a parent during an activity such as this then they will begin to develop anxiety and associate mess with an unpleasant experience and in the future will avoid getting messy altogether. So to avoid this I persuaded (read- forced) Andy to assist Dylan in exploring the mud with his feet, letting him squelch it between his toes and gently splash it inside the trough. I had to keep reminding Andy not to constantly try and wipe any mud of his trousers or hands but in the end I think he started to actually enjoy it! I know for a fact he enjoyed the final step...the shower!

Classic with a twist

Painting...

One thing I couldn't wait to enjoy with my son was finger painting! Partly because I was desperate to see Dylan's first work of art and partly because it was an excuse for me to splosh about in paint. I was definitely not dissapointed and just seeing Dylan amazed by all the colours on his skin made it a great experience. In our house messy play like this is saved for the hour before bath time and this makes the clean up operation so much easier! One of us departs early to run the bath while the other finishes off the play. I find that knowing we are going to put Dylan in the bath straight after play allows me to relax more as I know there isn't going to be a screaming fight to get him clean (or somewhere close to it) and also means that once he is bathed and bedded we can tidy up baby free. Now your probably wondering what the twist is so here you go...





















We decided that since we where already covered in paint and bedtime seemed a long way off we may as well get even messier! So I grabbed a tin of supermarket own brand beans, stuck them in a bowl and placed them on the floor to see what Dylan made of them. At first he was happy just to touch them in the bowl but very soon they had to be squished, squashed and smeared across the floor. His favourite definitely seemed to be squishing them in handfuls as you can see in the above photo and I have to say squashing beans is by far much more fun than eating them!