What is it about water play that is so good for children?
The summer is here and it’s the perfect time for getting the children outside and having some fun with water!
It may be one of the most entertaining ways of cooling off on hot days, but there is much more to water play than meets the eye.
Water play provides valuable childhood experiences through hours of absorbing fun. Children love it – splashing and pouring, spraying and creating waves. It enhances their creativity and imagination, promotes good health and well-being and provides opportunities for some wonderful investigative and scientific learning.
Water play promotes well-being
Water play can be a wonderfully calming, therapeutic activity, especially for children who are a little hyperactive and enjoy the soothing touch of water and the sensory stimulation that it offers.
Focusing on one gentle and repetitive activity such as scooping, sieving or running their hands through the water can really help a child to relax and unwind. This is a useful technique for improving their ability to concentrate, too.
On the other hand, some lively splashing is a great outlet for pent-up energy, allowing kids to let off steam, have fun, laugh, play, be happy (surely the most important thing of all!).
How does water play help children’s development?
A water play area, whether indoors or out, can foster cognitive development, teach mathematics and science concepts, enhance physical skills, promote social learning and cooperative effort, and enrich language experiences. In the 360 environment all these benefits stem from the children just playing with each other or by parent led play having fun together.
We have heavily invested in our water play tables, which are exciting and colourful with so many activities from fishing and shooting balls, a vortex, an Archimedes screw and many different fountains, tippers, dams and pumps.
Endless play and learning opportunities at your fingertips.