VBC summer camp – week 3 – Water Play

This is week three of the virtual book club for kids summer camp hosted by Educators’ Spin On It, Toddler Approved and Rainy Day Mum.  This week’s theme was water play and it coincided with some hot weather so we had lots of outdoor water play where we could be in our swimwear – rare here.  We started our water based activities at the weekend.
This week’s books were:

Ten Little Fishes by Don and Audrey Wood

Swimmy by Leo Lionni

A house for a Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

Sharing a Shell  by Julia Donaldson

Two of these books we have the others we read online.  Luath doesn’t like Swimmy – well we have never got past the first page!  We have some other water themed favourites that we read too.
What we did on this week’s camp:
I set up a small world play in Luath’s bath – shells, stones, sea creatures cut from a milk bottle.  I did it when Luath and daddy were outside and seemingly she was delighted (I was out of the room when she spied it).

Wildlife spotting at the beach – we saw hermit crabs (which was brilliant as they feature in so many books), other crabs and some tiny fishes.
 
We almost had perfect paddling pool weather (bit breezy so Luath had on a wet suit).  We had our milk bottle sea creatures to catch, some bath toys and some foam alphabet letters.

We had a pirate treasure hunt ending in some pirate play.
 
Weather for a proper paddling pool day.  Luath only put one foot into the pool until the slide came out.  She LOVED LOVED LOVED this.

A very long play session washing dishes (completely Luath led).

Escaping from the sun (doesn’t happen often here!) to make some fish suncatchers.

We did the spray painting part of Toddler Approved’s watergun fish.

What a fun week :)
(Luath is 29 months)

Wildlife spotting at the beach

We had a fun morning at a nearby beach wildlife spotting.  Our previous adventures with Luath’s bandy net at the beach in front of our house has proved fruitless so we were hoping for a little more success.  We found nothing on our first venture into the water so we played in the sand instead.

While playing a six spotted Burnett moth landed on me – seemingly they are very common but daddy and I haven’t seen one before.

Daddy had a look in the dyke (stone wall) and found an old nest.

Luath wanted to fill her watering can.
    
This time as the tide had gone out further we spotted lots of tiny fishes.

Then I caught a small crab by gently moving the bucket along.  We spotted many small hermit crabs and then I spied and daddy caught a bigger crab.

Luath was a bit frighten of the biggest crab and was glad to return him to the water.
 
We have read about many of these sea creatures and seen plenty dead crab shells so it was lovely for Luath to finally see the real thing.
(Luath is 29 months)
Shared with Country Kids and Tuesday Tots via Rainy Day Mum

Outdoor Play – Washing liquid bottle water fun

I have some saved washing up liquid bottles to use for crafts, art or play.  On a sunny afternoon I gave Luath a water filled bottle to play with.  If the bottle was fully filled Luath could squeeze it and get a fantastic arc of water.

As it was too tough for Luath to squeeze successfully once partial emptied after a few full bottle arcs, I took the top off.  Luath had great fun pouring and refilling.
   
She made a puddle to dance in and around.  She also decided to make some water paths around the patio to follow.

(Luath is 29 months)

Frozen Jelly and some water play

The is the first time I had set up water play (done when Luath started eating the lentils I was showing her draining  through the salad spinner, as posted previously).  She has water play at bath time and in the hydro pool, but I've not set up water play other than those times. She was a little unsure, mainly stuck her hand into the water and took a few things in and out of it.  She adores the bath and the pool, and is so keen to play with the water when we set her bath out, I was quite surprised how unsure she was of water in a new setting.

I took the frozen jelly lollies (from our jelly painting ) out I had made two days ago, well frozen now, I had difficulty getting them out. I put one in the water, gave Luath one and I held one. Luath was very intrigued. The texture was odd, some bits jelly like others ice. After a little while I showed her that you could put the lolly in her mouth (actually it was quite a pleasant lemon and lime flavour). This then was a huge hit and Luath enjoyed mouthing it for a while.

see what others having been playing at this week at the play academy