Esther and William have arrived at the wonderful world of fairy tales.

Every chair belongs to a bear and every bridge has a troll.

In their toy kitchen they make porridge.

They act out stories all the time and listen to them in the car on repeat.

They can recite their favourites word for word with perfect rhythm and rhyme.

I am awed and amazed by their capacity for learning and understanding stories.

Their favourites are Three Billy Goats Gruff and Goldilocks.

They also like any tale that features a wolf!

Including Little Daughter which is featured on the CD in our car, The Story Tree by Hugh Lupton.

Inspired by this new love of all things fairy tale I decided to spice up our water play on a hot sticky day by using the water table to create a porridge kitchen.

To our usual water I added lemon flavouring for scent and yellow food colouring for colour. The bright yellow lemon water was stunning and very sticky and made wonderful porridge for play.

Esther and William enjoyed stirring the porridge and serving it into different sized cups and bowls.

They loved pretending to taste it and declaring it too hot, too cold, too sweet, too salty and juuuuuuuuust right!

They loved pouring it from container to container.

They enjoyed letting the water slip through their fingers.

They liked the sound it made as it was poured from different heights.

They added ingredients to their porridge just like the blackberries added by the daughter in The Magic Porridge Pot. It was wonderful watching them thread different elements of different porridge stories into their play.

Esther and William chose the things they needed for their play. They chose different sized bowls, tubs and pots. They asked for different sized spoons and I also added funnels to the mix.

We did this activity on an incredibly hot day and they stayed at the water table for, literally, hours. I could not get them to come inside.

They acted out their favourite porridge stories, made porridge for mummy and for daddy and for each other.

They stirred and poured and mixed it all up, for hours and hours and hours.

As the sun shone the yellow water sparkled like gold dust and the bright white daisies looked like daisy boats on a lemon yellow river.

This was truly sensory play and was even stimulating me and making me compose poetry in my mind.

Esther and William talked constantly about what they were doing. And William often asked his favourite question, ‘Can you see what I’m doing? Can you see what I’m doing, Mummy?’

In the winter, or at least when the days are a little cooler, we will do this again with real porridge and I for one cannot wait!

What ways have you extended or changed your water play?

Please do link up any messy or sensory play activities that you have enjoyed. We are always looking for new ideas to try.