Water play is a wonderful sensory experience but it can also be used for science experiments!
In one of our lessons, Kate was very curious about the big tub of water and a bunch of loose parts Lynda placed on the table. There were some children leaving kinder for the day and they automatically came to the tub and started to put their hands in the water. That's the magic of water play!
Water play engages our senses of sight, touch, hearing. If we are at the beach in salt water, it could also engage our sense of smell and taste.
Water play can teach us about measurement and about science concepts like floating and sinking.
A great way of encouraging children to use their predicting or guessing skills (which teaches them to think for themselves) is to set up some treasures near water and ask the children which ones will sink or float. Kate was able to guess some but not others. When Kate couldn't guess, we tried it out and we were sometimes surprised by the outcome.
This simple exercise got us thinking about the characteristics of things that sink - "they are heavy like rocks" and things that float - "they are light and some are flat".
If children are allowed to explore loose parts in water over a long period of time, they might be inspired to create little boats and see which ones float or sink.
TASK
What else can you think of that we could do with water to encourage the children's learning? Could we pop some dolls in the tub with some wash cloths and the children can explore washing the dolls? What would that teach them?
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