My kids love to play in the water! They will stay in the water all day if I let them. I designed a sensory water play for them for St. Patrick’s day with all their favorite materials.
Therefore we had to make a sensory water play for St. Patrick’s day! We collected as many green items around the playroom we could find and put them in a giant TROFAST bin, adding some water and Lakeshore Learning green foam paint.
They had fun for hours discovering, observing, and playing!
I love to see what my kids, Bugzy and Buddy, turn my idea into by just giving them various tools and materials. My children turned this activity into a science experiment to see how they can transfer water from one bin to another.
We got this science set from amazon about a month ago, and we use the scoops and cups daily. But the tubes we just started for the first time today. My daughter was frustrated initially, trying to figure out how the pipes worked, but after a few tries, she saw that you could connect them to other tools to make the water transfer. This article includes affiliated links, I earn on qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate.
Materials for this Green Water Sensory Bin Activity
- Green items from around the house (green gems, green jewels, unisex cubes, animal figurines, math manipulative, etc.)
- Container to play (TROFAST bin from IKEA was perfect for us).
- 8+ cups of water
- 5+ squirts of Lakeshore Learning foam paint
Tools to Play with this St. Patrick Sensory Bin:
- Scoops
- Measuring cups
- Sifters
- Clear tubes
- Silicone cups
- Bowls
For more sensory play ideas please see my other blog about fun, easy, and engaging activities for your young learners here.
Water Play Activity Connection to Learning for Toddlers and Preschoolers
- Try asking your child to find specific items, for example, “Please find me the green sea turtle.”
- Then talk about observations about the item they found, such as colors, size, and texture.
- Have them find and count 20 gems from the bottom of the bin to transfer to another container.
- You can further this activity by counting past twenty or using the retrieved items to skip counting or counting by 5’s.
- Compare sizes of three objects and let them sort them in size order, and share their findings.
- Make index card labels for objects in the bin. Hold it up and read it aloud, have your child try and find the matching item to the word. Then spell out the word together and continue with more items.
Build Vocabulary Through Play
Because my son is not as vocal as my daughter was at the same age so I’ve been on a mission lately to get more focused on my questions I ask him that are not simple, yes or no answer response questions. I now try and catch myself and rephrase the question to get a more of a response from him.
Here are sample questions I asked my children.
- What did you find? What shape is that item? What else can you feel in the bottom of the water?
- Try to describe the texture of the item you found. How does it feel?
- How do those two items connect? How are they similar? How are they different? What else did you notice?
- Why did that feel rough/smooth when you picked it up?
For more hands-on learning fun for your child, please see my other articles.
