Whether it’s in the pool or the bathtub, playing in water can be an incredibly useful experience for children. Through interacting with it, they can learn and grow in numerous ways on their own. When sharing those interactions with others, they can discover how to create games with friends.
Take a look, and learn about all the ways in which water play can help your child to learn and grow!
What Benefits Can Your Child Get from Water Play?
Although playing in the water may seem to be a simple thing for us, it can actually help a child in some crucial ways. As they learn how to navigate the world around them, water can be a great ally for building strength, learning to communicate and bonding with others. Below, you’ll find several ways in which water play is helpful for children.
1. Water Helps Develop Their Growing Brain
Water provides children with an entirely new experience to explore. Not only do they get to experience water itself, but also how different toys and tools work in the water. They get to test and play with a form of matter that we don’t typically work with.
Furthermore, the introduction of water can get them on an entirely new language track. As they play with the water, they’ll learn new words that apply to the way they’re playing. As they fill up cups and other toys, they’ll also start getting the very basics of measurement understanding.
2. It’s Great for Imagination Building
For young children, the concept of playing in water adds a whole new dimension to their playtime. They get to explore a new world, using new tools or simply experiencing the way tools they are used to work differently in water.
You can help to allow for this imagination growth by adding special features to the playtime. This might include cycling out toys and cycling in new ones, adding bubbles to the water or through the use of food colouring to allow for different water colours. Whatever you do, your child is sure to love it.
3. Water Helps With Building Motor Skills
Playing in water is a great way to help your child with building up their motor skills. While playing, they have opportunities to engage their gross motor skills as well as fine motor skills with different tasks. On top of that, they can feel textures they may not be familiar with, like slickness or sliminess.
As they play, they’ll be able to do things like stir or pour water, which is great for hand-eye coordination as well as their finer motor skills. Additionally, they’ll be able to provide their arm muscles some good exercise, which will be useful as they grow.
4. Assists With Growing Physical Strength and Coordination
Most of us recognize that when we’re in water, moving in certain ways can become harder. Things like walking become slower because there is more resistance. However, we are also lighter and more free to move without the risk of falling. This combination makes the water a great place for babies to become stronger.
Furthermore, learning things like kicking and swimming to help with building strength in their legs and core. Getting kids into the water is a great way to allow them to build their strength, become more coordinated and learn skills that will help them for life.
5. Water Stimulates an Interest in Science
As young children begin to understand the concept of water, it opens up numerous possibilities for teaching them about things like water conservation, how important water is for our health, or even marine life and environments. Through the simple act of water play, you can open up doorways into brand new types of learning.
Remember that while things like knowing that the world is made up of vast amounts of water may seem mundane to you, it may be incredibly interesting to a small child. Make sure to use playtime as a time for some great learning as well!
6. It’s a Great Social Bonding Activity
When children play in water together, there is a strong opportunity for them to develop social skills. This is particularly true with regard to the skills that children need at playtime, like teamwork, learning to share and figuring out how to create a game together.
As a result, it’s a good way to help children with learning how to play together, whether they’re just working towards the same goal or engaging their creativity to create a new game with their own rules. This is a fantastic way to help them with learning how to develop lasting friendships with one another.
7. Swimming Build Survival Skills
On a more serious note, things like swimming, floating and treading water are great skills for your child to develop. This is not only for the sake of exercising and having fun, but they are also necessary skills to have when it comes to survival.
If they are involved in a water-related accident, it’s going to help them to know how to behave in a given situation. That includes knowing when to swim, when to take breaks and eventually how to react in different kinds of water scenarios. A little extra knowledge never hurts, especially if you have a family that spends a lot of time on the water.
Conclusion
It’s easy to help your child with learning to play in the water. Most of us start with baths, as we need to get clean anyway. Baths make for great practice with keeping good habits and learning to play in the water. Aside from that, a small kiddie pool is another great way to enjoy the water.
Just make sure to take the proper safety precautions as well. Any toys used should be large enough that they can’t be swallowed, dyes should be non-toxic and you may want to be careful with soap, as small children stand a good chance of ingesting at least a little bit of it. Aside from that, play on!
I’d love to hear the ways you and your kids engage in water play – leave me a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.
Erica
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