Soapy Animal Waterplay

• Dawn dish soap (or any brand you prefer)
• Cool water 
• Water table/bucket/bin/bathtub
• Various animals 
• Cleaning tools (brushes, sponges, etc)

Waterplay is easily one of the most entertaining sensory play activities you can do! Children love water and making a mess, and this combines the two. For this activity today, I used a bucket of animals that were covered in paint and put them in our outdoor water table. I then added water and soap and mixed the two to make bubbles. My son brought over the cleaning tools and off he went! 

We scrub, scrub, scrubbed and washed all of the animals, while having an amazing time making bubbles. This activity is sensory because in addition to the cool water and different animals, the dawn gives the water a clean smell. We worked extra hard to make sure all the paint was off the animals feet. He also used tools in a meaningful and purposeful way. 

My son is 20 months right now and just becoming really interested in dramatic play. So we spent about 10 minutes pretending to be the different animals going for a swim or taking a bath. We practiced all of the animal sounds and identified each animal. We also talked about the colors and identifying features of each animal. I had my son tell me where the ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tail, feet, belly, were. 

1. A way to explore water in a productive way.
2. Dramatic play. Identifying body parts on yourself and animals while playing.
3. Exploring and using tools appropriately.
4. Using terminology like more/less, hot/cold, wet/dry, clean/dirty.
5. Language development by naming animals, their sounds, and what they do.