Just Add Water

The gorgeous summer weather has been a great time to involve h2o in our outside play.  The paddling pool came out the shed and got cleaned up.  Part of it had sprung a leak so it didn't fully inflate but Ethan was just as happy with it as last year and his play has become much more precise with detailed storytelling going on involving boats, shells, cars and london buses.  Quite often a toy will end up in there that is not really made for water but Ethan just wants to involve all his toys in whatever game he is playing!  Ethan remembers back to the sinking/floating experiments we all did at Belsize Bears whenever he is in water now and loves to predict what will happen with new objects and test it out.  I do hope he gains a love of science which I found very uninspiring at school as it is actually interesting when presented in the right way!

 
When Marley came to play I filled the tuff spot with water and the plastic food and tea set for them to play with.  This soon became a big muddy puddle! They splashed around and got the watering can and measuring jug to pour muddy water on each other.  They also both lay down in it.  It was one of those occasions I am glad I am not friends with people who are overly precious about their children getting mucky as both boys were covered in water and mud by the end of the picnic.  My theory is clothes and children can always be washed so let them go wild! Children can sense our inhibition in situations and it can stifle their creativity.  The beauty of childhood is living in the moment so if we can allow them to just be, then we should.

At Belsize Bears we filled the tuff spot with water again but this time it was set up outside on a concrete path with no mud around so it was an entirely different experience.  The invitation to play we set up was drinking straws, beakers and an early learning centre pour and play run.  I also filled an old washing up bottle with coloured water.  The beauty of the tuff spot (or builders tray which can be purchased at builders merchants or ebay) is that children of all ages can access the play.  This meant the whole group was engaged in an activity at once and it was lovely to see.  They did pouring, squirting, splashing, paddling, imaginative play and were able to practice social skills negotiating a play space involving lots of other children.

Science Play - Float or Sink

This week I decided it would be nice to introduce some scientific concepts into play with the children.  I did not take my science GCSE and must admit it was something that I lost interest in at secondary school but by researching experiments I found I had a renewed interest in the subject and it was fantastic to see the children learning and making predictions as to what would happen next.

The first experiment we did was:

Float or Sink?

This experiment is to show displacement in action.  I put a bit of food colouring in a clear plastic mixing bowl and filled it with water.  What objects sink and what objects float?  Why is this?  I looked for objects that were similar so we could talk about why one sank and the other floated.  I looked for things made from the same material that were different shapes as well as lots of different materials.  I also encouraged the children to go and find objects to do the experiment with.  The children loved guessing sink or float and placing the items on the correct piece of laminated paper afterwards.

Here is the theory and some other ideas.