Why Water Play Should be at the Heart of your Early Years Provision
Teacher Claire Martin shares some examples of the learning making a splash in her setting…
Water play is an important part of any early years classroom. As a naturally occurring and easily accessed resource, water provides practitioners with a simple but effective method of teaching, while for children it affords opportunities to explore lots of different concepts in a fun and open way.
Children are naturally curious about the world and by exploring water as they play, they’re able to expand their curiosities. They also learn best when they are engaged in an activity that utilises their senses – once again water play fits the bill.
Extending learning
The water area in our classroom at the British International School of Boston is enjoyed by all our children. They spend a long time engrossed in scooping and pouring the liquid into different-sized containers.
Through such activity they can explore cause and effect – for example, the children can observe what happens when water is poured into a water wheel and then begin to predict what they think will happen when they use different scoops.
We provide children with easy access to various scoops and jugs, which helps to develop their hand-eye coordination. We also add different watercolours to the water, which adds an extra element of excitement.
Recently, the children have enjoyed washing our toys in the water – to help them, we added washing-up liquid and provided whisks. The children love whisking up more bubbles and the gross motor movements required are great for their physical development!
We quite often supplement our water area by introducing additional resources such as rubber ducks, fruit, glitter, ice and bubbles. Objects such as toy kettles, pots, cups and teabags have been a huge hit, too, and encourage children to develop their imagination as well as their physical skills.
Water play outdoors
Whilst we generally allow children access to our water area inside our classroom every day, we also provide children with access to water play outside – we’ve found it opens up many new opportunities for active, hands-on learning.
For example, children love muddy puddles and allowing them time to jump and splash in the water helps them to learn about their environment at a deeper level. On days where there has been little rain, the children have filled buckets with water and made their own.
To make sure children had unobstructed access to water in our outside area, we decided to allow them to use a water butt, which gets filled up when it rains.
The children love that they can get to water whenever they need it, and transporting water from the butt to the mud kitchen and other areas outside has also helped to develop their hand-eye coordination too.
Outdoor water play can be tricky in the winter, as the water can freeze and be too cold to play in. We have overcome this by replacing it with alternative materials to play with, for example, ice, rice, coloured oats and even pom-poms.
Problems to solve
Water play provides a great way for children to develop their problem-solving and social skills.
For example, our children wanted to water our tree but discovered our bucket had a hole in it. After a few attempts at filling the bucket up and running to the tree, they realised that they weren’t fast enough to get the water there in time.
The discussion and language that arose was fantastic and really demonstrated the children’s thought and learning processes.
They worked together to solve the problem, connecting pipes from the water tray to the tree, and managed to get the water to flow where they wanted it, with a few adjustments along the way.
The practitioner’s role in this was merely to move some of the larger pipes and then step back, so as not to interfere in the children’s play.
Providing children with free and open access to a variety of materials at all times encourages them to become more independent in their play. Through using watering cans to water our flowers and plants, our children get to observe first hand flowers and plants growing.
Water Fun Day
Every year, in the summer term, we hold a Water Fun Day. Children come to school in their swimsuits and we spend the entire morning outside, playing with water in different forms.
We ask parents to donate paddling pools and sprinklers for the day, and we fill up every available tub!
The tubs also play host to a range of different objects and enticements, from bubbles and coloured water, to boats, scoops, water chalk, water pistols and more. Children also have access to our hose and lots of buckets and toys.
All teachers get involved, and the children have a fantastic time trying to get us and their friends as wet as possible. They are always fully engaged in water play on this day, especially when they see the adults joining in and having fun! It’s a fantastic time and opportunity for children to practice their social skills as well as develop their gross and fine motor movements.
For those who would rather participate in quieter water activities, we invite them to wash a teacher’s car or the classroom toys, or participate in water painting. We also have a classroom indoors dedicated for dryer, quieter activities.
Water Fun Day is one of the most exciting events in our school calendar, and the children and parents love it!
And finally…
Of course, when playing with water, the children inevitably get wet! This, in our view, is a byproduct of good water play, and it certainly doesn’t deter us or the children from participating. All our children have spare clothes in school, and once they have finished with their water play, we help them get dry and changed.
Claire Martin is an early years teacher at the British International School of Boston. Follow her on Twitter at @Clairemartin157.
