Water Beads fun

My children adore playing with water beads. My daughter especially loves the whole process, pouring the water and the tiny hard beads into the bowl, feeling & swirling them around in the water then coming back regularly to check whether they've grown, seeing how they look blurry in the water then solid when she lifts them out. Once they've soaked up the water they are so smooth and squidgy, it really relaxes the kids (and me) to swirl their hands around in them. You can buy a packet of them for a couple of pounds on eBay and they last for ages, we're still using our first packet after several batches.

They can get hours of fun from them without needing a time-consuming set-up. When we had some friends round I simply put a couple of tubs of them in our tuff tray with some scoops, cups, bowls and jugs. The children spent a long time scooping and pouring the water beads together.

                                                           

This is also a fun activity that I saw online and couldn't resist giving a try - my two really enjoyed building their marble run in the tuff tray and then scooping water beads into it, they whizzed down!

They are also great for doing a sensory seaside tuff tray. I set this one up for my daughter's Reception class. Along with the water beads I put in some sand and seaweed - cooked linguine dyed green with food colouring. Even when they got coated in sand the children still loved the feel of the beads and they rinsed clean very easily. Fabulous (slightly messy) fun!