Hammering Water Beads

Hammering Water Beads

So…it’s no secret that my kids LOVE water beads. At least twice a week they are requesting that the water beads get pulled out. While I love sensory bins, there are times (especially when the weather outside is beautiful) that we need to be exploring more than a bin. Hammering Water Beads is a fantastic way to take a water bead sensory bin and extend the play into some gross motor fun.

Hammering Water Beads

The other day while I was talking to a colleague, they said to me that they were not into sensory play. That they didn’t care for the mess of sensory bins. And I’ll be honest, my heart sunk a little because I realized that some of the activities that I share on the blog make it seem like sensory play happens in a bin and is always messy. And that can’t be farther from the truth — that is just the type of sensory play my kids prefer. And while this activity is messy (because we love messy play) I hope that it helps get you thinking outside of the bin 😉

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Painting with Water Beads!

Painting with Water Beads

Water Beads are by far one of my kids favorite sensory materials. The ways that you can play with water beads are endless and they are cheap! We have tried everything from adding scents to our water beads to freezing them! Our lesson this week had a craft that required Marbles and Paint to do it. While we had the paint, we did not have any marbles lying around. But…we did have water beads! We had an absolute blast with this substitution – Painting with Water Beads was a major hit!

Painting with Water Beads

What I loved about this activity is that while it was very messy, it was super adaptable to meet the needs of both of my kids!

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Shaving Cream and Water Beads Sensory Bin

Shaving Cream and Water Beads Sensory Bin

Shaving Cream and Water Beads Sensory Bin: Over the last month we have been exploring different ways to play with water beads and our beads are finally reaching the point where they are just about ready to head to the garbage. Wanting to squeeze one last fun activity out of them we mixed our water beads with another one of our sensory favorites — shaving cream! The sensory bin experiment turned out awesome and was a huge hit with the kids!
Shaving Cream and Water Beads Sensory Bin
While the kids did have a blast playing with this activity and it was great for adding a fine motor challenge, it did not hold their attention as long as some of our other sensory bins have. This activity though was fairly low mess, gave me enough time to clean the kitchen while they played (a good 20 minutes), and was super easy to throw together!

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Frozen Water Bead Sensory Bin

Frozen Waterbead Sensory Bin

Frozen Water Bead Sensory Bin: Water beads are quickly becoming a family favorite around here. We had a blast adding in essential oils to our water beads a couple weeks ago which piqued an interest as to how else we could play with water beads!

Frozen Water Beads

Water beads are tiny hard beads that resemble pellets. They grow when left in water, and become a slippery and squishy sensory material that kids enjoy playing with. Heading into this activity I had absolutely no idea what would happen if we froze water beads, but the kiddos wanted to do something similar to our dinosaur ice excavation activity so we gave it a try…

These frozen water beads were an absolute blast and while not an activity that held my kids attention for one long session, it was one that they visited frequently throughout the day. Am thinking this would make a fun observational experiment next time!

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Stress Away Water Bead Play!

Water Bead Sensory Play for Quiet Time

Water Bead Sensory Play: Have you or your kids ever played with water beads? If not then you MUST! Water beads are such an amazing sensory experience! They’re squishy, slightly slimy, slippery, and just absolutely amazing!

Water Bead Sensory Play for Quiet Time
This activity has quickly become one of MY favorites. In one extremely simple activity kids are exposed to science, sensory and fine motor exploration! Plus it uses essential oils that were amazing for calming my kiddos down before nap time!!!

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