This easy to set up sensory activity has a little bit of everything we love: recycling stuff for playing, simplicity of construction, and one of kid’s favorite sensory medium: water beads! Join us in a play with a water bead slide!
We have played with water beads before and even bath with them and pretend cooking them with ice. For real, water beads have been laid on the table where kids can reach them and freely use them for play. I surely look forward to what kind of new play idea kids will come up next with them!
Materials for Water Bead Slide
- plastic bottles
- painters tape
- deep plastic container
- water beads
- bottle caps
For today’s activity, we used 3 plastic bottles to make (kind of) a marble run. We cut the top and the botton on each bottle and then, taped bottles together using painter’s tape.
Place the plasic container underneath the slide. We used a deep container to prevent water beads from jumping all around the room.
Another thing we used is this blue plastic slide from Furreal Friends Furry Frenzies set but it’s really optional, and you can do this activity without it. We can recommend using something like race car tube to prevent water beads from spilling all around.
Let’s Play!
Toddler enjoyed fetching water beads from container and letting them slide through the slide made of plastic bottles.
She started very carefully sliding one by one water bead but soon enough she was placing inside a handful of them.
It was fun to watch as water beads bumped and jumped as they went through and landed in a container.
Extending the Activity with Fine Motor Practice
We extended an activity after some time with a bunch of plastic bottle caps.
She matched one of the water beads in each of the caps and then tried to see how it will look if she let them slide together.
This was also great fine motor skill exercise.
Overall, this fun activity was something that kept my toddler occupied for over an hour. And she kept coming back to it throughout a day.
What to Play Next?
- make a Bead Balloon for Hand Strengthening
- try Rubber Band Fine Motor Play using Household Items
- check and choose among 30+ amazing play activities with water beads!
Water beads are so fun, my little ones just love to play with then. Sliding is the next best thing, knowing my kids their probably going to have a castle slide war. I love this idea, thanks for sharing!