Water Bead Sea Life

Have you tried water beads before?

There’s something seriously soothing about them. That is, unless your little one likes to throw then you may be cursing I suggest using them (sorry Kat, hope you’re still not finding them down your sofa!).

For this activity I decided to mix up my usual go to of water beads, scoops and bowls. I decided to go for a simple water bead sea life set up using story stone images.

I am a member of the Play Club with Little Lifelong learners and for the ‘Under the sea’ Play pack there were some fab story stone templates. For William I decided to simply laminate and cut them out as little discs.

I filled a cake tin with water beads and added the sea life animal images. As they were protected by laminate they didn’t get wet.

The ways that William and I played this activity and how he was learning through play:

1. William picked out each animal working on his fine motor skills.
2. As he pulled out an animal I would tell William the name or we would look at a feature “This is a crab and it has claws”. This helps develop his vocabulary.
3. He had so much fun and was laughing away as we hid the animals at the bottom and played a game of hide and seek.

I love water beads but after a few days both William loses interest and so at that point I either dehydrate them and put back in the pack or I use them up by doing an activity like freezing them or adding them inside balloons to make a squishy ball.

Happy water bead playing! Caroline x