[Lets Play] Water Beads

Its summer, it gets hot and by 'it GETS hot' I mean... when you live in Melbourne it can be 45 degrees one day and 18 the next so... It can get hot.

Sometimes you can have 5 40-47 degree days in a row and I can the children can get pretty ratty and over it... as most do...

There are only so many things that can be done half a dozen times before they become monotonous and nobody wants to... has the energy to do them anymore.

So we stay home. We use the early mornings to go outside get vitamin D... run energy, see leaves move, hear the birds. We then move our way inside when the sun becomes too warm and we shut all the doors and windows including the blinds and turn the air con on at around 11:30 and stay inside... 

So once inside... we do the usual activities and after a full on morning outside it usually involves food first and drink {even though we take drinks outside with us}

How do I keep a busy four and a half year old on the warmer days you ask... Yea I'm getting there.

So after we have exhausted all the...

Painting

Crafting

Stenciling

Practiced writing

Mouldable "sand"

Played 'big boy' Lego

Wooden block construction

Hide and seek

during the hot week that I can stand

I whipped out these baby's 

... they have been a HIT once again. 

We have used them for the last two summers {after I learnt about them from Bianca}, but only just purchased replacements.
They come as tiny beads and you put them in water for 8 hours and over that 8 hours they expand. Any excess water you have you tip out and voila! Water play without the water!

They are cool therefore cooling when played with.

They are non toxic... so great for the littles

I love a good sensory play but they also help imaginative/language/fine motor/social & emotional and math, science skills... I lost count the amount of times the octopus was saved by his fellow creatures or the other items that he added to the mix. Or how many ended on the floor because of them being poured from one jug to another.

Even the baby loved them.

So tell me...

How do you keep cool on the crazy hot days?

What is your favourite cool/calm activity?

Your comments are not only awesome! They are inspiring! Thank you!