Kids love Water Beads. They are sensory, squishy, bouncy, colourful, rolly-poly balls of fun!

Generally when the kids are done playing with them though, they don't really resemble balls any more. They are much closer to GOO!

So, what to do with them once they are mush? The easiest thing of all is just to throw them on the garden. They will dry up and disappear, BUT, if you'd prefer to get one last activity out of them, why not try this?

Alphabet Goo! Add some basic letter recognition learning to this fine motor, sensory activity.

The invitation to play. 

Bowl of crushed water beads with magnetic letters inside. Tweezers for grabbing. Bowl of water for cleaning. Tea towel for drying.

Practicing fine motor skills using the tongs/tweezers to find and grab out the letters.

It's fun but tricky thanks to the slippery, slimy goo.

Cleaning the letters. Swirling the water round and round.

Drying the letters with the tea towel

Discuss the found letters. Do they know any of the names? Sounds? Words beginning with? etc

Ditching the tweezers, time to squish the goo between your fingers

I turned my back and guess what? 

Now all the water from the cleaning container is in with the crushed water beads!

She loved swirling it round and round and round with a spoon.

Adding a plastic cup to the goo soup! Lots of filling and pouring. 

It's fun to watch the chunky bits plop back into the mixture.

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by enjoying the sensory and fine motor components but don't put such a huge focus on the letter learning. If your child doesn't know any letters or sounds yet, there is still no harm in letting them search for them and just telling them what they've found.

- Extend this activity by including letters of basic (or more advanced) words. Have the child find, wash and dry the letters and then see how many words they can make from them.

- Mix Up this activity by including different objects to hide in the goo. Numbers, animals, coloured buttons, whatever.. it's up to you and what you're wanting to focus on.

- Some children aren't into the messy, gooey stuff which is why you'd include the tweezers/small tongs. This allows them to still play/learn without getting messy.

-Talk with your child about the process and order. "Which comes first? Drying the letters or washing them?" etc. 

- Listen to your child talk as they go through their experiences. This will help you determine where they are at with their learning, knowledge and understanding and help you to develop the activity (or future activities) to their level and interests.

***Water Beads should not be ingested so parental supervision with children who might be tempted to eat them is required***



Debs :)


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Playing with peers is so important for children. The amount of peer learning that takes place is amazing as is learning an understanding of self within a group and the best ways to deal with and cooperate with others.

Here I'm sharing some activity and food ideas for a play date that was set up for 4, three year olds (3 boys and 1 girl. Obviously the food and activities could be used with children of varying ages.

Invitations to play 

(Activity ideas)

Water Beads, cups, bowls, spoons, containers

Playdough, popsicle sticks and wooden farm animals

Imaginative play. Dress Ups. Doctors

Home made playset. Blue glass beads, rocks, sticks, twigs, felt, leaves, flowers etc

Baby Play

Let's Play and Learn Together

 The boys exploring the water beads for the first time. Quite the sensory experience

What are you doing with the play dough? Learning new ideas from one another

 Collaborative imaginative play

(t's pretty funny for everyone when the "sick patient" has a "sore butt" and therefore needs a butt injection.

Burning off a bit of energy

(Three year-olds certainly have A LOT to spare!)

 Fun for baby too!

The Food

Exploring Apples. 

Tasting plate. Apples 4 ways. Back- 3 types of apples. Granny Smith, Pink Lady and Golden Delicious. Which is your favourite? Bottom Left- puréed apple, Middle- Apple chips, Bottom right- apple cinnamon crumble mini muffins.

 Nutrition for busy, growing kids

 They dug right in!

Who knew that Pirates ate Purée? 

This was the only time our fabulous 4 were quiet!

Want more food and activity ideas for a playdate? Check out some of our other ideas here.

Handy Tips:

- A little bit of planning and thought before your house is descended upon will help make your playdate run more smoothly

- Depending on the age of children, modify the snacks and activities accordingly

- I buy my Water Beads off ebay (love shopping from home!) but they are also available at flower shops, markets and more and more variety shops. I recommend waiting for a good day to do this outside if it's the children's first experience with them.

- Don't be upset if the children are more interested in everything else in your house than the activities you've set out. Just being in a new environment is a learning experience for children and they will get to your activities eventually

- To contain mess, try setting out individual activities on their own blanket/mat. This can help the children see and recognise boundaries and can keep toys with lots of parts (eg Lego) all together and a breeze to clean up at the end.

***- Water Beads should not be ingested so parental supervision with children who might be tempted to eat them is required***

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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If you are into Early Childhood education and activities, you will be hard pressed to have missed hearing the hype on the web about "Water Beads." So many early learning centres and kindergartens are raving about these funny little things that we just had to give them a try!

I ordered some very cheap water beads from overseas via ebay. You can also get them on Amazon and there are numerous online stores selling them. I'm sure you'll find the quality will differ depending on the source. You can also pick them up at florists and markets as their original use was to replace the use of water in vases. Don't worry, they're non-toxic. For more info, just google!

 The ones that came in the mail to us looked like this. I got 10 packets this size for less than $5 including postage!

 To get things started we used some math skills to measure the required amount of water and practiced our coordination to pour the water in

 Now we play the waiting game! The instruction state about 4 hours till they are fully "grown." This is an activity that required time and patience... and other things to do while we waited.

Wow!! It's been about an hour and a real change is noticeable. This was cause for a lot of excitement in our house.

 Couldn't resist touching them at this point. They feel so different to when we started!

After a few hours they are really huge but not round like we thought they would be. All bumpy and lumpy!

Fully "grown" and much rounder now. Like big squishy marbles.

After trialling this activity we can see why young children and their caregivers are loving these so much!

We had a whole day of excitement in watching them grow and then quite a bit of time playing with them. If you are gentle they last for a long time and bounce and roll and are generally irresistible to touch.
With a firmer touch, they are squishable and you can end up with a big squishy mess! This is all part of the fun :)


Handy tips:

- Talking to your child about the changes they are noticing and the feel and function of the water beads will help your child develop their understanding and vocabulary

- For just the tactile, sensory experience, "grow" the water beads overnight and provide for your child in a tub or sensory bin when they get up. Picking them up will help them practice their fine motor skills

- Extend this activity by sorting the colours, talking about the shape, learning about pressure and how much or little is required to squish them. (This is fun and messy... next time we will be stacking books on top of them to see how many they will take before they squish!)

- Sit back and just watch what your child will do with them on their own. Once they've explored the way they want to then try to lead them towards experiences or ideas that you've thought of.

- See here for how to set them up for a fun Invitation to Play

- When they've gone all mushy, try this activity

***- Water Beads should not be ingested so parental supervision with children who might be tempted to eat them is required***


Debs :)

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