Documenting delight: Day forty seven (Water beads sensory play)

Afternoons in our household make me a little anxious. The kids become increasingly tired, dinner needs to be prepared, sibling disagreements erupt and the magic moment of Lachie walking through the door almost seems like a life time away.  Recently I have been feeling that I have been doing a little too much clock watching (“No way, It’s only 3pm. It can’t be!”) . Every moment doesn’t need to be filled with excitement but I acknowledged that this dragging of time was getting me down. Things needed to change. Expectations needed to be lowered. A clean house by dinnertime? Not going to happen each day. Aiming for sibling harmony around crazy hour? Stop dreaming Amber. I also wanted to start engaging the kids in some focused play in the afternoons. Something hands on, something that would hopefully reduce the fighting and tears. So this week each afternoon we have been playing together. I have been putting aside the little household jobs that usually swamp me and have been planning a small activity that we can all enjoy. Today’s inspiration comes from my friend Kate. I had seen water beads being used for play on Pinterest before but it wasn’t until Kate wrote a blog post about her experience with them that I was committed to giving them a go.

{tiny, tiny beads waiting for tiny hands}

{everyday equipment for exploring the beads}

Water Beads are tiny water-retaining polymers that start off as tiny balls and expand as they retain the water they are soaked in. They come in 10g packets, with each packet making 1 litre of beads once hydrated. I purchased six packets from Ebay but today only used four packets divided into two buckets. This was plenty for my two to play with. While the kids ate their lunch I set things up outside. I gathered together a collection of kitchen/play equipment that I thought would help with pouring/scooping/experimenting with the beads and filled the buckets. I put it all on top of a large strip of old material. Wise move. Harper, rather than keeping the beads in the buckets opted to pour them on the ground, having the material underneath meant that we could easily tip the escapee beads back into the buckets.

{Precise by nature, Finn worked hard to pick up just one bead}

{Scooping & collecting the beads}

{getting up close and personal}

{The ice-cream scoop was a hit!}

I loved watching their intial reaction to the beads. Harper launched right in, almost dunking her head into the bucket to get closer to the tiny beads. Finn carefully dipped his finger in to touch the beads. I knew this activity was going to push him. He doesn’t like to get wet, at all. Harper on the other hand, well I was just praying that she wouldn’t ingest a mouthful of those tiny suckers.

{feeling the beads and watching them grow}

{huh? the beads won't go through the funnel}

{Finn loved talking about the colour of the beads: "Which colour do you like best Mummy?"}

{Whoa! Feet in the water. Big step for Finn}

As the afternoon went on I moved between standing back and watching & listening to getting involved and running my hands through the squishy, smooth beads (it was very relaxing!) They both got so much from the activity but approached it in very different ways. Finn asked lots of questions and created a range of mini experiments (“What will happen if I pour the beads in the funnel?” “How are they getting bigger Mum?”) Harper explored the beads mainly by pouring them from one container to another, alongside pretending the beads were foods she was cooking up (“I made you a salad.”)

{As the beads expanded Finn discovered that the beads bounced when you poured them}

{Stomping on the beads}

{A bead bath for Barbie- so relaxing!}

{trying to the pick the beads up with tweezers - very tricky!}

What can I say? For $10 it was money well spent; it was fun, educational, messy (but not too messy) and I didn’t look at the clock once this afternoon.

I’ll leave the final word to Miss Harper though. When we were packing up I asked her what she thought of the water beads. Her response:
“Dey cool!” (Translation: “They were cool!”) Yes they were.