Esther and William love playing with water.

Whatever the weather they love nothing more than going outside and splashing in puddles. If there has been no recent rain then we create puddles of our own.

Along with puddles they adore their water table and will play with this for hours, in sunshine, wind, snow and pouring rain.

Through our recent spell of very cold weather we started bringing our water play inside and even made the water warm and soapy much to the excitement of my beautiful toddler twins.

Today though we are back outside and to make our water play a little different we added some colour.

Esther and William thought it was amazing!

The thing that they liked most of all was that when they put their hands in the red water they had red hands, blue water made their hands look blue, green water green and so on. They thought that this was just magical.

They also liked pouring the water from one container to another and mixing the colours up.

The water table started with one side filled with red water and the other side clear, they then moved the water cup by container by cup until both sides were red.

Water play is great for exploring whether items float or sink. It is great for learning concepts such as hot and cold, warm and cool, shallow and deep. Esther and William talk constantly when they are playing with water. Even if they are playing alone they narrate what they are doing to themselves.

They use great water vocabulary built up through a summer outside. They tip and pour and splash and splosh. They empty and fill and mix and share.

Water play provides us with a great excuse to get outside and get some fresh air. Esther and William use up lots of energy through this kind of play. They learn new skills and develop both their fine and gross motor skills.

We have so many accessories from boxes to beakers, cups, plates and bowls, jugs, watering cans, wheel barrows, spoons. Esther and William use them for tea parties, cooking, boats as well as just for moving water from one place to another.

With colour added to the water we have found a new dimension for our play. We have talked about colours, colour mixing, reflections and light and dark.

Now when we go outside Esther and William will not just be asking for more water but requesting their favourite colours too.

Cannot wait to see their little faces when next week I add aquatic creatures and fishing nets to the mix!!