With a hot Arizona summer upon us, water play is a great way to target many different skills with your child! First, it is a fun sensory activity to be splashing in a water table – who doesn’t like a fun way to cool off! You can change the sensory experience by adding ice cubes, food coloring or glitter!
You can target fine and visual motor coordination by having your child scoop ice cubes, colored pom poms or any small items out of the water with a spoon. This can help with mastering utensil skills for meal time! If they are struggling to use a spoon, move to a bigger utensil like a ladle. Want to make the activity even more challenging? See if they can sort the pom poms by size or color. You can also target fine motor precision by encouraging your child to collect small floating items/pom poms using a pincer grasp. Scissor skills can be incorporated by using scooper scissors (linked below) to collect items.
Another area you can target in combination with water play is bilateral coordination. Can your child transfer water between cups without spilling? Can they practice the steps of hand washing in the water tub? Can they catch a water balloon (reusable balloons linked below)? Hand strengthening can be addressed by using small water droppers (linked below) to fill up cups of water or transfer water. You can also use squirt bottles as repeatedly squeezing the lever is a great strengthening and endurance activity.
As you can see, the possibilities are endless, so go grab a water table or simple bucket of water and cool off with fun summer activities!
Reusable Water Balloons
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZDXB13R/ref=syn_sd_onsite_desktop_0?ie=UTF8&pd_rd_plhdr=t&th=1
Blog by: Danielle R. OTD, OTR/L – Occupational Therapist
