Water Play Ideas

We've already talked about how you can liven up your sand play - now it's time to talk about water! Water is great for play time - everyone knows children love splashing about. But water play can also be a great learning aid. Clever use of water play can teach children loads of things about the world around them, and they'll have fun while they're learning too!

Here are a few tips for how you can add a splash of originality to your water play.

Colourful water

Not only does coloured water look great, it's a wonderful way for children to learn about how colours work. All you need is a little squeeze of food colouring, the kind available from any supermarket, and your water will be transformed!

Now try some simple colour matching exercises - ask the kids to place the yellow duckling in the yellow water, for example, or to fill the red beaker with red water.

It's also a great opportunity for children to learn about colour mixing - let them experiment with mixing different colours of water together and see what new colours they can think up. Hopefully they'll bring these new ideas into their next art class!

Sensory Water

Don't just stop with colour - why not add some scents and herbal infusions to your water play? A little bit of cake flavouring - again available at your local supermarket - can make water smell lovely. Mixing it up with colours can teach children to associate colours and smells - try some red strawberry flavoured water, or a green peppermint flavour.

Mixing some herb cuttings in with your water can introduce more unique scents, as well as teaching children a little bit about nature. Let them mix up their own scented infusions, identifying the scents of different types of herbs - herbal tea bags and tea leaves make some great additions, too. They'll be mixing up all sorts of interesting potions in no time, and learning all the way!

Water for storytelling

Loads of children's books feature water in some way - books like Sharing a Shell, The Rainbow Fish and Tiddler. Why not bring an extra dimension to story time by turning your water play area into a scene from their favourite book?

Coloured craft foam can be used to make all sorts of water-proof story props - let the children cut and craft their own scenes and characters. Laminated pages and printouts can be great for storytelling too. See what ideas you can come up with to transform your water tables; add sand or pebbles for a beach scene, or coloured rocks to make a coral reef.

Our Water Tables are a great way to introduce water play to your play area!

Whatever you choose to do, there are loads of ways to make water play a central play and learning experience. For great water play inspirations, why not check out Red Monkey's Sand & Water range - bringing a splash of fun to any play area!

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.

Role Play & Learning

The importance of role play.

Role play is an important part of growing up. It's how children learn to communicate, how they learn to relate to each other and the world around them. That's why it's so important, especially for Early Years and nursery-age children, to encourage healthy, imaginative play as much as possible.

Children learn important social
skills while they play.

The importance of role play is something that's now being acknowledged by UK teaching authorities; the three key pillars of the 2013 Early Years Foundation Stage framework are 'communication and language; physical; and personal, social and emotional development.'

Every one of these areas can be bolstered by including role play ideas in children's play time. And it's not hard to do! Given some simple tools, most children will naturally come up with their own imagined worlds, with their own rules and ideas to explore. All you have to do is provide them with the means to get creative!

Introducing our Early Years Kitchen Units.

At Red Monkey Play we recognise the importance of role play to children's learning and development. All of our Nursery and Early Years play products have been designed with children's imaginations in mind, and make great additions to a role play setting.

Our Kitchen Units make the perfect addition to any role play area.

These are the Kitchen Units, our latest Early Years role play products. Children love to play house - it's a way for them to learn to cooperate and empathise with one another, and just as importantly, it's plain old fun!

Our Kitchen Units are the perfect addition to an imaginary house set, providing three key features of the kitchen - a sink, an oven, and a washing machine. They're the perfect size for Early Years children, and are built from robust play-grade timber, so they can stand up to rough-and-tumble play sessions.

And in the true spirit of role play, our Kitchen Units don't have to be kitchen units at all - they can be the controls of a space ship, or machines in a laboratory, or treasure boxes at the bottom of the sea, or…or anything else you can imagine. I'm sure the children will be able to come up with better ideas than I ever could!

With role play, the only real limit is their imaginations!

Written by Tom for Red Monkey Play. For more play ideas and great play products, visit www.redmonkeyplay.co.uk.