Play in a Puddle on a Rainy Day
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By Meredith Burton
When the weather is rainy and uncomfortable for us as adults, it doesn鈥檛 mean that our children feel that way. 听Rain puddles have an almost magnetic pull for children. 听They love to jump in them, roll through them on their trikes and feel the splashes on their legs, float things in them and much more. 听
1. 听Puddle jumping听鈥� As long as it is warm enough, I regularly encourage my five-year-old to put on his raincoat and boots and run outside to jump in puddles while it is raining! 听He likes puddles after the rain too, but his favorite is watching the rain fall into the puddles as he jumps off the front steps into them! 听What a fun way to develop the gross motor skills of jumping and stomping! 听Children also experience cause and effect and properties of water through this simple activity.
2.听Floating and Sinking听鈥� Use a puddle as a natural water table. 听Let your child explore properties of floating and sinking by experimenting with different items found outside. 听Does a leaf float in the puddle? 听What about a stick? Or a rock? 听This can lead to other experimentation and questioning. 听Why do ripples form when you drop a rock into a puddle? 听 Children learn to make predictions and explore strategies for answering their questions through this type of play.
3.听Puddle Music听鈥� Rain has many sounds. 听Listening to rain on the roof and rain falling into a puddle are different experiences. 听A soft rain also sounds different from a hard rain. 听Try to replicate the sounds of rain using a pot or a wood block, a drum or a shaker. 听We also love to sing while we play in puddles. 听Songs can also lead to imaginative role playing in the puddles. 听Here are some songs we like to sing on puddle days.
Row, Row, Row Your Boat
It鈥檚 Raining, It鈥檚 Pouring
There鈥檚 a Hole in the Bucket
Singing in the Rain
Developing a sense of rhythm and rhyme are essential phonemic awareness skills 鈥� understanding and playing with the sounds of language. Music also plays with patterning, an early mathematical skill.
4.听Puddle Soup听鈥� Children use their environment to create play experiences with very little help from adults. 听We just need to give them the opportunities to explore and the freedom to live out their ideas. 听Provide some buckets and scoops or spoons to use in puddle play. My son likes to make puddle soup. 听As he stirs, scoops, measures and serves his soup, he also uses rich language to describe his process and to converse with friends, real and imaginary. 听Children practice and build vocabulary and build confidence and self-regulation through imaginative play. Puddle soup also can incorporate measuring and fine motor development using measuring scoops and cups.
Puddles can provide endless fun and exploration. 听Put on your raincoat and head outside with your child on the next rainy day, and when the sun comes out, keep track of how long it takes for a puddle to evaporate! 听There is always something new to learn when we play in nature.
Meredith Burton, MA, is the director of Furman University Child Development Center and teaches a 4-6 year old multiage class in the same program. She is also the president of the South Carolina AEYC. Her favorite job is being Mom to a rising first grader!