Today we did a water bead transfer activity that was great for developing fine motor skills. I put the water beads in a bowl of water and about six hours later they were ready for use.
I set the water beads out in a large shallow bowl along with an empty large parmesan cheese container that had three holes on one side and a large open space on the other side. Remember to use close supervision with children under the age of three and those still in the habit of putting small items in their mouths.
I also set out a special scoop tool that was from a Learning Resources fine motor kit that the children used for this activity along with their fingers. The water beads have a wet feeling to them which most of the children really enjoyed.
The children transferred the water beads into the container by either pushing them through the smaller holes or by dropping them into the large opening side. You could request that they find a certain color of water beads or count out a specific number if you wanted to extend this into a math and sorting activity. We did estimations of how many water beads were in the containers and then counted them.
You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:
You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:
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