This water transfer activity will take you moments to set up and provide your child with a great activity to help promote colour recognition, discovery and guess work while practicing fine motor skills, focus and concentration.

Ages: 2+

(see handy tips at the bottom for ideas to simplify or extend to meet your childs needs)

Materials: Multi vessel container (recycled packaging or ice-cube tray), pipette/turkey baster/eye dropper/small syringe (many come with children's medicines), water, food colours

 Simple put a few drops of food colouring in each segment. Have some basic colours and mix some others. I used the instructions on the back of the food colouring box to see how many drops of each colour would create other colours. Some were just random and even I had no idea which colour would show up. Provide a vessel of water and some water transfer tools.

 Learning to squeeze the bulb then release to suck up the water and then squeezing the bulb again to release the water.

 Guessing and seeing which colours appeared when water was added was quite exciting

 Going from the pipette to the syringe was a little tricky as she had to learn a new process. Pull up to get water, push down to release water. It didn't take long to get the hang of it.

 The syringe squirted the water out very fast. Woah!

A wonderful array of colours. But now what to do with them? How about some testing some absorption on cotton pads, making pretty patterns on towelling paper or making 'cloud jars' with shaving foam and water?

We LOVE Science Activities Here!

Here's our 2 most popular ones

 

Water Bottle Fountain                                              Cloud Jars

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity for younger children by focusing on the water transfer. Can they get water from one vessel to another? If pipettes etc are too tricky for little fingers provide a small spoon for them to transfer the water. Which colour will each segment have?

- Extend this activity by using your coloured water to experiment with, try mixing the colours, test absorption on cotton pads, try some art on towelling paper or use with a cloud jar experiment. Children could also write down their guesses for the colours in each segment.

- Use this time to demonstrate particular skills to them that they might be attempting unsuccessfully. Learning the process of squeeze in, release and squeeze again to transfer water with a pipette can be a little difficult for little kids. Let them practice and experiment until they get the hang of it.

- You could also put drops of food colour in the bottom of various glasses for them to experiment with.

- See what happens to the colours when you add more or less water. Talk about the strength of colour. dark or light? etc

- Talk with your child about what they are doing. This will help them understand the physical and mental processes they are going through as well as giving them the vocabulary to describe it. eg. "You are doing a great job transferring water from one vessel to the other" etc 



Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Today's easy, fun activity helps your child practice their colour and shape recognition as they use focus, concentration, coordination and basic problem solving to try and recreate a simple block construction.

Ages: 2+

Materials: Coloured Blocks

 Start with a basic construction that your child would be able to recreate and explain that you're playing a copy cat game

 Searching through all the blocks to try and find matching colours and shapes

 I've done it. Hang on a minute... Recognising that something doesn't quite look right

 That's BLUE! I don't have blue.

 Very happy with herself for succeeding

 Playing again. Look, same same. Green bridge.

 Ok Mum, your turn to copy MY construction

Some tips:

- Simplify by matching just 1 block colour and shape and build it up to see what your child is capable of

- Extend by making more complicated constructions with extra blocks, colours, shapes, levels and so on.

- Change the game by photographing a range of constructions earlier and giving your child the pictures to try and recreate off

- Have your child make some constructions for you to copy as well so they can observe the processes you go through in order to recreate them

- Discuss the different colours and shapes. 3 dimensional shapes have different names to 2 dimensional shapes. If your child is ready/interested, talk about the names and where you'd see them in real life. eg, Most of the tall buildings in the city are rectangular prisms.

- (PS- Make sure that you do have doubles of all the blocks/colours so that your child can copy your construction exactly... I realised this after discovering that we only have 1 of a particular type of block. Much frustration searching! haha)

Debs :)

Happy playing,

Debs :)

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Using a wooden peg and some recycled materials, we make a simple little doll to use for imaginative play.

 For this little 'angel' (Maddie's choice) we used a wooden peg, cut the bottom off an organza bag for the dress, used sparkly pipe-cleaners for the halo and to hold the dress on and some dolls hair for the hair from the craft cupboard

Using fine-motor skills and displaying concentration to stick little sequins on the dress. Sticking her in playdough made for a good stand

Some tips:

- The wooden pegs are great for this as they look as though they already have a head and legs. If you don't have these, just use any peg you have around the house.

- Your doll doesn't have to be an angel. If your boys are into firemen, builders or racecar drivers, try making them instead! Let your child lead with the doll choice.

- Use whatever recycled materials you have to make the clothes and hair (ie wrapping paper, ribbons, patty pans, fabric cuttings, wool etc)

- Instead of using materials, try painting the clothes on. This is quite fiddly for a small child.

- To simplify this activity, let your child choose the materials to use and then assist them in dressing the doll. They can then decorate and use for imaginative play.

- To extend this activity, allow your child to do as many of the processes as they're capable of with minimal assistance. Let them practice the cutting, gluing etc. Make furniture, houses, cars and so on out of recycled materials for your doll/s to use for imaginative play

Debs :)

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