Monday 15 July 2013

Summer Holiday Sensory Play Fun : Water Beads and Lights

I came across a fantastic idea for my observation at school which was water beads and lights involved in sensory play .

Focus

The focus for my observation was a targeted group of children so the help they needed was with the pincer grip which in turn helps them with pencil grip. Clear instructions were given that the water beads were not to be put in their mouths or thrown about as water beads tend to skip every where.

First of I got the children to warm their fingers up by getting them to touch each of their fingers to their thumbs, this action was repeated several times.



The activity 

The activity consisted of two colours of water beads, plastic Easter eggs , submerge able lights,plastic sea creatures and sea creature beads. I set a water tray with the beads, and places the submersible lights and small sea creatures beads with the plastic Easter eggs.This activity is ideal with the lights turned out as it becomes very magical.



But we were outdoors and as it was dull and overcast the turning off lights really didn't matter. I explained to the children that I wanted to pick the sea creature up using the pincer grip( I demonstrated )
Also I showed the children that they could open the plastic eggs by twisting them open (this is excellent for their fine motor skills ) Also to encourage the correct use of pressure of pencil grip on a pencil I demonstrated that you could pick up a water bead carefully and hold it between your finger and thumb.

The children had great fun playing in the water beads along with the submersible lights which were hidden in the plastic Easter Eggs along with some small sea creature beads.

Summary

Weak fingers can be strengthened by the child/children using theraputty, also tweezers and bead, threading. I linked this to their early learning goals physical, social and language communication. With pencil grip they have to have the right amount of pressure to little and the pencil mark will be faint, spider like and wobbly. If its too tight the pencil grip with result in the pencil going through the paper and makes the child tired.


18 comments:

  1. Beautiful! I've always wanted to do this kind of stuff with my toddler, but I have yet to get myself organised. I think he would love something like this. How did your observation go?

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  2. The Boy and Me has got me buying waterbeds too - she should be on commission! This is a great idea - will be ordering some more bits for the summer holidays x

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    1. Ha! This makes me chuckle, maybe I should go into business selling them?

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    2. Superb , water beads are marvellous.

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  3. What are waterbeads? I've not come across them before (rubbish parent!) Squeaky loves her sea creature collection, so I can see this going down really well with her.

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  4. Brilliant idea, have so many ideas about the lights now too!

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  5. This looks fantastic! I'm always trying to find games for Tia to play to help with hers. Not that she has any problem picking up even the tiniest of raisins. We are unfortunately still at an age where everything ends up in her mouth :-O But this will be fantastic for when she's older thank you.

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  6. This looks fantastic! What a brilliant idea, one to remember when we are past the "everything goes in my mouth" stage x

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  8. Love this post - what a brilliant idea Claire. It would be great if we could do these kinds of things with our toddler :)

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  9. What a great post. I'm wondering if my 4 year old struggles with his fine grip because he hasn't got past the everything in his mouth stage so he's not left with small pieces.

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  10. How cool is that??? My kids would love to join in with that!

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  11. Thanks for the mention missy, glad the observation went well.

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    1. I couldn't have done it without your honest compassion .

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  12. We also use water beads A LOT and have done some beautiful play with submersible lights. This is a great focused activity. Thank you for linking to Messy Play for Matilda Mae x

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  13. Are you fond of decorating the corners of your home? Water beads are just one of those tiny little but pretty gems that could make your dream design possible.

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