BABY AND TODDLER GROUPS
Splish, splash, splosh!
The Alliance’s Alison Heseltine celebrates the joy of rainy days and shares ideas on how to make the most of the wet weather
Alison works as an early years development manager at the Alliance, aupporting families and educators.
There’s something special about playing outdoors in the rain. The sights, sounds and smells of the world when it’s raining provide a myriad of learning opportunities and new discoveries. With the appropriate clothing and the enthusiasm of a supportive adult, being outdoors in the rain is water play on an enormous scale!
Sometimes, though, families can be reluctant to be outdoors in weather that’s far from ideal, often missing out on attending sessions. As baby and toddler group leaders, how can we share the benefits of being outdoors to encourage them to take those first steps in building their resilience and venture out?
Making the most of watery mysteries
Something strange happens to the world when it gets wet: surfaces get slippery, light reflects differently, and vital information can be hidden beneath puddles. All of these challenges give children the chance to develop and refine their relationship with the world around them, alongside building key skills.
Rainy days, when surfaces are slippery, test physical skills. Balance and coordination are needed for walking, along with core strength, as wet surfaces react in unexpected ways. We all know that feeling of having to really concentrate on the movements we’re making to avoid falling over!
Through real-life experiences, there’s also a chance to develop critical thinking skills – making decisions and judgements, and assessing risk. Is it safe? What will happen if…? Where did the puddle come from, and how deep is it? It’s an opportunity for little ones to start to take charge of their own safety and wellbeing, with gentle support and guidance from us.
Building independence and responsibility
A rainy day also means taking responsibility for their own personal, social and emotional development in terms of choosing suitable clothes, finding these and learning how to put them on, taking them off and hanging them up afterwards. All of these are supporting building those independence skills, and the day they master putting welly boots on the correct feet and zipping up their own coat is such a boost to their confidence.
Sensory skills
The changes that rain brings means new sensory experiences, too – light reflecting on raindrops, rainbows, clouds, the sound of rain, the feeling on raindrops on your cheeks and the splashes of puddles. Taking a moment to notice these along with our children can bring not only new knowledge and understanding of the world, but also the joy of a moment. There’s even a smell associated with rain falling on dry ground: petrichor – that fresh, earthy smell we often experience after a storm.
Other learning opportunities
So, what activities and ideas could you share in a baby and toddler session to help families feel more confident about being outside in the rain? It might be that you just go to the window or door to watch or maybe you have some outside space to use, but there are also a range of activities that you can try that can help to bring the outdoors in.
These are some of the ones that our groups have been trying out:
Books and stories – there are lots of stories out there all about the rain, and one of our favourites is Splish, Splash Ducky, who is so happy when it rains and he gets to play with his friends.
Dressing up and trying out coats, boots and umbrellas – a chance to think about what might be needed and practise putting them on.
Potion making – measuring, mixing and stirring. What might you add to your potion water – mud, feathers, sticks, leaves…
Ice play - as water freezes and its properties change from what little ones expect it gives the opportunity to make scientific discoveries and learn about the world.
Transporting – water is difficult to move around, it can be heavy and moves unpredictably so there are problems to solve and decisions to make. Spoons, scoops, buckets, watering cans which will work best?
Watering and planting – a chance to discuss why we need rain and the positive effects it can have.
Rainy-day songs
Incy Wincy
“Incy Wincy spider climbed up the waterspout
Down came the rain and washed poor Incy out
Out came the sunshine and dried up all the rain
And Incy Wincy spider climbed up the spout again.”
I hear thunder
“I hear thunder, I hear thunder
Hark don't you, hark don't you?
Pitter patter raindrops, Pitter patter raindrops,
I'm wet through, so are you.”
Did you know..
...that jumping in puddles is not only great fun, but also a chance to support learning and development? Learning to jump takes coordination, core strength and an awareness of how your body will move through space.
Then there’s the working out how deep the puddle is, whether it's large or small, and if there’s a bigger puddle to choose instead. That brings in maths and problem-solving skills, too. And of course, there’s cause and effect to think about – what happens to the water and where does it go? (Often down wellies, we’ve found!). This is also an ideal time to teach the children the nursery rhyme about Doctor Foster:
“Doctor Foster went to Gloucester,
In a shower of rain.
He stepped in a puddle,
Right up to his middle,
And never went there again!”
Asking, ‘How could he have avoided getting so wet?’ can draw together the learning from discussions around the size of the puddle and what happens to the water (displacement). You can also ask children to move and behave like the rain – how might drizzle be different to heavy rain? – while playing different rain sounds to stimulate thinking. And, finally, there are some lovely onomatopoeic words to try out like splash, crash, pitter-patter, and whoosh.
Quotes from our rainy-day learning and play in Bradford:
“My son loved splashing in the puddle; I’ve never seen him stay so focused on one thing for so long before!”
“My daughter enjoyed exploring the ice and water, noticing the differences between the two.”
“We will be watering our cress seeds each day, and talking about how plants and animals need water.”
Thank you to our Bradford friends and families who joined in with all our activities during our ‘Splish, Splash, Splosh’ week.
Under 5 magazine
The magazine of the Early Years Alliance