Living in an apartment is great, no major worries about landscaping or pest control (if you do not mind lizards every now and then). However, I find it really challenging to do messy work with Sophie in such an environment. We have no garden, no patio or even a balcony... just an apartment. The floor right outside our apartment is covered with ceramic tiles and the wall is painted, so we cannot even use sidewalk chalk. Also, the humid weather here promotes the growth of algae and mould if things are left wet. So, we use a hose to wash out the mess (may choke up the drainage system also), not to mention that water is expensive here.
I really want Sophie to do water play and sand play but it is almost impossible here. Especially since Sophie takes showers instead of baths. And even if we go to the beach, we must comb the area to remove the rubbish first and the sand is too coarse and hot. Before I start to sound like a whiner… I do intend to somehow create opportunities for her to play with water and sand (without getting sick or hurt).
Today, we tried to do water play using her old bath tub. I was not sure how it would go so we did it in the bathroom. We used to wash her toys together like that but today, we would just play. Unfortunately, we do not have any proper tools for water play so we made do with whatever I could find. To my horror, Sophie started drinking the water! She scooped water with her spade and drank from it. Then she poured water all over herself with the teapot and attempted to clean my bathroom wall with the sponge. Is that water play?
Okay, I decided to make it a little more skill-based. I removed everything from the tub, leaving behind the strainer. Then I dropped a couple of letters and numbers into the tub and asked her to fish them out. Nope, it did not work well. And of course, silly me actually handed her the spade back. So she started scooping water into her mouth happily. When that was not fast enough for her, she took a cup, filled it and drank to her heart’s content. At one point, I got worried because she looked like she was about stick her head into the water. Alright, that was quite enough for now, I decided.
I guess I need to establish some basic safety rules and perhaps play a few rounds with her before things can run smoothly for us. However, I think the tub idea might just work for water play. I would have to do a bit of planning before we can include it into our routine. When that can be implemented, I will work on sand play.
Oh Dear! Maybe you should take out the little cups or teapot...Most of E's water toys are flat cos' I only put shapes, numbers, letters foams, and I only put the little bucket in recently cos' I am teaching him prepositions. I guess for Ethan, he has been in the tub playing since young and he knows the rules, Never Drink Water from the tub. What about bath her in the tub once or few times a week if you are concerned about cost, let her get used of playing with water in tub, and see you can can incorporate some learning in the tub later.
ReplyDeleteWe prefer to shower her so that she wont catch a cold or prolong her bathtime unnecessarily. I dun really want to teach during bathtime... just want to keep it functional.
ReplyDeleteI want her to learn to keep herself relatively dry while water playing and learn skills like fishing, scooping, pouring and the properties of water.
haha :) But what's wrong with drinking the water if there's no soap in it ? :) Our water is drinkable :) I thought she's playing so well. she definitely looks like she's enjoying herself and I think she has realised that a spade/scoop can scoop water but a net can't. She tried to scoop water with the plastic net to drink but not successful but with the spade and cup, she can :)
ReplyDeletehaiz..Ethan stays in the tub from warm to cold water ...also kind of worried that he will catch a cold too....but I can't bear to pull him up from tub when he is playing so happily, so sometime I have to drain the cold water and add more warm water and usually leave him until he wants to be out by himself...haiz...must think of a strategy liao otherwise he can stay in the tub forever ....and imagine our water bill soaring up liao even though it's cheap here ....
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