*Please always exercise caution when working with small objects and children. Make sure kids understand that water beads are not to go in the mouth.
Today I learned that water beads might actually be one of the funnest and cheapest forms of entertainment on the planet. I got a bag of 15,000 of them for about $12. We didn't even use 1/5 of them today and they filled an entire bucket. No joke, my girls played with them for 3 hours today! Technically you are supposed to wait several hours for them to grow, but they wanted to be RIGHT there watching, and playing in the water–so I let them. At one point I tried to get them to go outside (which they love), but after 2 minutes my 3-year old said “No thanks mom. I want to go inside and see if the balls are growing.”
After dance she ran back into the house and asked to play with them some more. Here's a pic of us waiting for them to grow:
Here's what we used for this activity:
- Waterproof Smocks. These aren't necessary, but it kept their shirts from getting wet.
- Fine Motor Tool Set. These were fun for scooping up and sorting the beads, and also help with fine motor skills.
- Water Beads. These ones are the best price I have found so far. You get 15,000 of them! They will last us forever!
- Sea Life Plastic Creatures. These were fun for pretend play!
- Small Strainer. We got ours from the Dollar Tree
Another fun thing to use: kid's hammer for squishing the balls! It would also be fun to use an ice cube tray to sort different colors.
Here's a picture showing how big they get comparative to their starting size. They grow to be the size of marbles! So fun.
Here's some more pics of them while they were small:
And here they are after a couple of hours. There is so much you can do with these! I had fun just running them through my fingers…over and over and over. Mommy therapy perhaps??
Bounce Them!
SCOOP THEM!
Smash THEM!
SORT THEM!
STRAIN THEM!
And as soon as it gets warm outside….we will be swimming in them!
Coming soon….