This week the weather has been wonderful

We have been outside every day

You can tell we have had fun as our garden is strewn

With various tools and accessories for messy play

I hope that the summer stays sunny now

But for this little family we would like it just a little less hot

This week we have battled through hay fever and a snotty, coughy, throat achey virus

And our battles have been made bearable by getting outside

And getting soggy and messy

It is no secret at all that Esther and William adore the water

Our water table from Step 2 has been with us now

For three years

It is still used most days

We love it

As Esther and William have grown

We have tried lots of different ways

Of extending and enriching their water play

This week we added glitter and oil

To make sparkly oil slicks

We had wonderful, beautifully scented fun

And were all covered in glitter for days

A magical sign of fun

As we shimmered and sparkled in the summer sun

We began our play with plain water

Esther and William love pouring water

They love filling up containers of different shapes and sizes

They love transferring water from one place to another

It is magical listening to them play

And realising how far they have come these past few years

In their understanding of water, capacity, measuring and estimating

This time because of the brilliant sunshine

We were also able to be amazed at shadows and reflections

In and on the water

As we added pretty petals to our play

Esther and William play very differently with the same materials

This always fascinates me

Once the pretty petals were added

Esther was all about making potions and pictures

While William was all about investigating

He was fascinated by the fact the flower petals

Float on top of the water

Even when poured from one container to another

William also loved measuring with me

He liked seeing how many jugs it took to fill a cylinder

How many small cylinders to fill a large cylinder

We also have some bucket scales

Esther and William both love trying to balance the scales with water

They carefully pour water into each bucket until the sides are level

William loves to make observations about what he sees

He comments on everything

Verbalising the awe and wonder of his explorations and findings

Once they had time to explore the different ways to play

With petals and waters

We decided to add some sparkles

Esther and William chose ocean colours

Blue and green and silver

They carefully sprinkled the sparkles

Over the flowers and into the water

It was magical to see the water start to shimmer and shine

To see how the glitter collected in pools on the petals and leaves

It made our water play much more visual

You could see the shimmering colours glint in the sunshine

As the water was transferred from one cylinder to another

The tubes became lined with the different coloured sparkles

You could see the tiny pieces swirling together

Showing how the water was moving

After a while of investigating the sparkling water

It was time to add the oil

I found some old mummy and baby oil that I had loved using with Tilda

The scent was still good and strong

It invoked precious memories of Matilda Mae

And added another sensory element to our play

The scent was beautiful

It complemented our sparkling floral water

Esther and William loved watching the oil make bubbles on the water

The glitter clung to the oil

And the sun reflected off the slick of oil that came to rest on top of the water

It was really very pretty to look at

It was a wonderful sensory experience

The smell, the feel, the sight of our sparkly oil slicks

On a glorious summers day

It was not long at all before Esther and William wanted to get in the water

With all the glitter and oil already covering their faces and legs

We decided it was time to give their feet a try

Using shallow plastic trays we created scented splash pools

Before pulling up chairs and creating a rather wonderful foot spa

The perfect way to end a busy session

Of sparkling scented sensory play

The perfect way to end

A sunny summer’s afternoon