Pouring Mostly

It always fascinates me how something as simple as pouring water can interest a child for such a long period of time.  Just the act of practicing & perfecting something.  The smile that accompanies that is priceless.

Both Lily & Maggie requested pouring activities recently.  So I set a few up. I’ll rotate them each day or as they are used and interest is lost.

One of their favorites is a multi flask vase where we use to pour different colored liquids into.  The girls usually use a dropper. But they switch. I add a drop of food coloring to the glasses so they can self fill the glasses themselves.  So it’s a surprise & almost magical when you pour it.  Maggie is getting very good at mixing her colors to make new ones.  And she’s remembering the combinations.  The pitcher they use with this activity is more difficult to handle because it has no spout.  Which makes for harder practice.

Lily is getting very good at pouring.  She spills very little when focused on the task.  At the end of this activity she mixed colors in the tray (of a color activity) so the spillage was actually on purpose.

Lily is getting very good at sequencing her activities.  She knows what to do with the tools presented although switching them sometimes which makes the task more difficult. In this activity she chose a sieve a little bigger than it should have been to scoop the beads out of the water in the bowl. I did not model pouring it from bowl to bowl.  I’ll see if it comes natural after we sit with the materials next time.  She was too busy learning different ways to get the beads out even finding a small spoon to gently capture them along the edges of the bowl as they floated.

 

As always Lily brings her animals with her where they take turns in the materials which I never mind as it is pretend play which spreads imagination.  And she still does her work which makes me happy.

Lily pours the water above to set up her wooden floating bead activity.

Lily scoops out beads from the water.

Maggie is particular.  If she spills she likes to reset everything before continuing on.

She picked the absolute hardest spoon you could use to get those beads out & still succeeded after a lot of patience & trying.

I am amazed that something as simple as transferring water from one bowl to the next  is so much fun to the children.  Maggie giggled between every few squishes after understanding that the sponge could be used as a vessel to carry the water.

Lily is doing a great job with pouring now.   For this activity she poured with the glass tea pot into small glasses which was great practice with grading pressure & fine motor skills, hand and eye coordination.  At the start of the activity she hardly spilled without overfilling naturally (without tape markers).  She loves mixing the colors together to make new ones too.

I put out the grater & a bar of soap to see what happened.  Maggie finished the soap up faster than I can peel a carrot.

More pouring.

The above activity Maggie is working on was a tray with a canister of water, 2 droppers, 2 tubes of varying color and matching color dyed water to the tubes.  The idea is to match the color of the water to the cap of the tube. It involves screwing a cap on & off and learning to tighten it so that liquid inside does not leak out.

Lily really enjoyed the pouring activity.   She set it up several times until she mastered it.