“Water is the driving force in nature.” ― Leonardo da Vinci
Dear Moms and Dads,
Today I wish to talk about bath play time and recommend bathtub toys for toddlers!
I love bath time, for me of course 🙂 but I mean here I loved the quality time spent with my toddlers while they were in bath!
I truly think this is real quality time.
When your toddler is 1- 5 years old, you stay near him/her, usually no phone and just you and him/her. You talk, play together, laugh and this is really special! You are entirely here now with her, physically but also mentally and this makes this time so precious for both of you!
If I have a gift to buy for a friend’s toddler at this age, I usually look for bathtub toys for toddlers! And the category is not that full actually! Yes, you can find everywhere those bath colors which is nice as the toddler can draw but real toys to play with is not always easy to find in the stores.
Then when the child grows and enjoys to take alone a shower or a bath (while you are nearby), the time he spends with himself in the bath is as important. Water calms and provides an inside state of serenity to allow your child to imagine, play, talk with himself and this is important to cherish and encourage in my opinion.
The 2 companies I love in this category of bathtub toys for toddlers and personally know well are Alex and Edushape, both located in the USA!
They each developed a whole line of bath toys that I wish to present to you but before that, lets understand the reasons why the bath time play is so important!
There are lots of articles that talk about importance of bath quality time or the safety tips wile bathing your baby but not so much about the importance of play in the bath and the importance to continue this bathtub playtime when the toddler grows.
What Are The Benefits Of Water Play? (source: kidscraftroom)
- Water Play Releases Energy
My toddler can lay down, dive, learn to breath under the water, talk with himself, imagine, pretend to swim…all those activities release energy.
- Emotionally Therapeutic Water Play
Water play can be a quiet activity where children are quietly absorbed. A bit like losing yourself in a colouring page, children benefit from the relaxing and repetitive nature of scooping, pouring and running their hands through the water. Much like grown ups enjoying relaxing in a warm bath, children can lose themselves in the physical repetition of gentle water play, allowing them to unwind, order their thoughts and relax.
- Develop Motor Skills With Water Play
Water play and especially bathtub toys for toddlers gives many opportunities to develop gross and fine motor skills across the age ranges. You only have to look at a young baby when they are shown water pouring in front of them, they will reach out to feel the trickle and try to capture the flow with whole hand grasps and then with early pincer grip movements and so the development continues to grow as they do.
Fine motor skills and hand and eye coordination are constantly refined as children scoop and pour water and fill and empty containers in a multitude of different ways.
Gross motor skills and large muscle strength is developed and stretched as children are encouraged to carry and pour larger and heavier pots and buckets of water.
- Building Language and Communication With Water Play
Water play is so versatile you can add pretty much any play items to it, be it dinosaurs and mud for a swamp or cars, sponges and bubbles for a car wash, the possibilities are endless! Of course each new way of playing with water brings with it new vocabulary choices for all the play items and play scenarios involved, as such, it is a fantastic resource for building new vocabulary.
Even when playing alone young children will often narrate the play situation out loud, practicing stringing words together and building sentence structure.
- Stimulating Creativity and Imagination
I usually change the bath play items every few weeks, from little stones he likes to shells from the sea or plastic regular dishes toys. This will stimulate his discovery in new ways. Easy ways to change water play instantly is to add colour with food dye or add bubbles with dish soap or bubble bath. They love to see colored water and bath in it.
- Promoting Cognitive Development
Water play offers many opportunities for children to problem solve, question, explore and experiment. They may be investigating water science, finding out what floats and sinks, or how water moves a water wheel. They may be building their understanding of the properties of water and discovering that water flows downhill and will find a horizontal level. They may be developing math skills and estimating how many small pots of water it takes to fill a large bucket. They may be exploring measurements on the side of a jug and learning mathematical terms like “more than” or “less than”.
Water play can come in so many different forms and each new water-based activity offers the potential to develop and consolidate learning in lots of exciting ways.
Here are some great Edushape & Boon bathtub toys for toddlers:
Personal note from Edushape team:
“Throughout the years, Edushape bathtub toys for toddlers have incorporated high educational values while supporting a child’s healthy social and emotional development. Our hope is that our brand and products will bring joy and happiness to kids all over the world- even in these difficult times.” Gil Mintz, Sales & Marketing Manager
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