Summer Fun For Preschoolers: Water Activities!

Today we begin the Summer Fun For Preschoolers series! Each Friday for the rest of the summer I will share a guest post with wonderful ideas of ways to intentionally spend time with your young children!  Click here for a list of all the weeks, and check out the contributors in the left hand sidebar!

Today I am happy to welcome Tauna from The Proverbial Homemaker with loads of water activities:

One of our family's favorite things to do when the weather heats up is to play with water! But I don't have the time energy to set up anything elaborate. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. 

Here are some activities that are so easy that you can do them right away and with the stuff you probably already have around the house. If it's not sunny where you are right now, they are good bath tub activities too.

Colored Water

We had some food dye and egg coloring packets that needed a reason to exist. Why not stain our fingers with them? 

I gave the kids cups of colored water and ripped apart a cardboard egg container to make flowers. The most effective way to dye them was soaking them in the water and then setting them out to dry. 

While they dried, the kids used spoons, cups, dippers, droppers, scoopers, paint brushes, and sponges to play with the water. Needless to say, very little clothing was involved. 

We poked holes in the dried egg container pieces and used pipe cleaners as stems to make a  pretty little bouquet. This is a popular idea online--you can see another version at Egg carton flowers from SusieQTpies Cafe.

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Another colored water activity is ice! We experimented with the combinations and amounts of dye and made some pretty ice cubes. 

After they froze, the kids painted with them, but we quickly realized they would have been better with sticks in them for holding. (Like Colored Ice Cube Painting from SOS Mom.)

During bath time I tossed a few in for them to chase around. I also pulled out a white casserole dish and filled it with warm water so we could see the swirls and color combinations as we added the ice cubes. That was their favorite. :) 

Squirting Water

Old plastic condiment bottles make fantastic water squirters. The refillable picnic condiment containers also work well and are often at the dollar stores. 

Inspired by Disappearing Letters from Reading Confetti, I made a little challenge out of it by drawing letters and other objects on the ground in chalk and having them trace them with a water stream. Of course, they make excellent water guns too!

Frozen Water

As fun as the colored ice cubes were, this was an activity we did last year that I'm certain we'll repeat. I found this at Frozen Fun from Counting Coconuts. 

Get a medium size container like a plastic shoe bin or a dollar store dish pan, fill it with with water and a bunch of fun items (themed or not) and then freeze it! 

The kids used toy and real tools to bash the thing to bits and claim their prizes. Just make sure the prizes aren't valuable at all, because they'll probably be destroyed.

Painting with Water

An ever popular activity around here is painting the house with water. Just give the kids some buckets of plain old water and some art or house painting brushes, and they will have a blast!

I hope you found some fun, easy ideas here! What fun water activities are you going to try this summer? 

"Tauna loves her family and loves God. She has been married for 7 years and has 4 young children. She writes at ProverbialHomemaker.com, so named because, as she says, "me becoming a wife, mom, and homemaker proves that anything is possible with God."

What are you doing this summer with preschoolers? Link up all your great ideas! This linky party will be open all summer!

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I may share at any of these parties!