Red and Green Water Beads
This fun science experiment is a wonderful sensory exploration that engages the hand muscles through pouring and scooping. It promotes hand-eye coordination and evokes imagination as water beads are used in play!
Materials
- A Package of Water Beads
- Towels (For clean up)
- Scooper
- Strainer
- Small Bottle
How To
- Set up the space: If you have a hardwood floor underneath the sensory table, you will want to lay towels down for safety purposes. Otherwise, it’s water and it won’t get to the level of bathtub splashing but prepare yourself for some spillage!
- Offer your child a choice of bead color (If the packaging allows)
- Usually water beads come in small packets. Out of the five packets we had, we poured half of each packet into the sensory bin. I would say that’s about 3 tablespoons each. It wound up being a little more than we expected, so I recommend starting even smaller with ¼ of the bag.
- Then fill the sensory bin just enough to cover the beads. Mix them up and wait. They take up to two hours to fully expand but the process is so fun to watch and goes by fast!
- As soon as the beads soak up the water, add more water. You will have to repeat this step a few times.
- Offer your child the opportunity to pour water into the sensory bin. You can use a small pitcher or measuring cup---remember they like to be little helpers!
Skills
Hand-eye Coordination
Hand strength and control
Sensory exploration
Tips with Miss Charlotte
Tips on materials:
- If you have a little one that still explores by putting things in their mouth, I would suggest using the larger water beads
- You can use any of these from your kitchen!
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