Children love water! But do you know that when children play with water, they actually develop some really cool skills? Here’s a list of benefits!
Children never get bored of playing in water. And water is equally beneficial as sand in building skills in various areas of development like emotional, social, cognitive and more.
Develops concentration
Kids usually forget themselves when they play in water and can keep doing a repetitive or different activity in water for long periods of time. And this makes them feel happy and builds their concentration abilities. Which means that when they transition and go to real-world organised learning, they are prepared to study long hours.
Promotes social skills
When kids play together with water they talk a lot and learn to play with other kids. Long hours with other kids and water, means that they are able to deal with the boredom of the same activity because of the company they enjoy. They play with one child, then with another then all of them play together, then they switch games. All of this helps them learn to be flexible when with others and also to build social skills.
Strengthens some Math concepts
When kids are playing and move water around from one container to the other, the ideas of quantity and shape are developed. The ability to assume that a certain amount of water can be placed in another container even though the shape of the new container is different, is established. So, concepts like quantity, volume, space and shape are strengthened.
Build language and vocab
When kids play with water and sand, they tend to talk a lot about it and learn new words to describe what they are doing. Words like wet, dry, gooey, damp, soaking wet can easily be differentiated when playing with water. Vocab related to the seaside or poolside are also easily learnt.
Helps release frustration
Many times kids can be frustrated, either because they can’t express themselves or because they are not yet able to speak. So, water forms a medium for them to express themselves frequently and easily. They may squirt water in anger or stomp on a sandcastle to release their frustration. It helps them release some stress and move on. Kids calm down easily when playing with water.