Indoor Water Table

When my mom was here in January, she noticed that LB loved washing his hands in the kitchen sink. At the time we would just hold him there for a little bit but he always wanted to stay longer. I would tell him I was going to sing a song and when the song was over it was time to be done. Most of the time that worked but sometimes it didn't and he would get mad and cry. It's not that I objected to sink play but just didn't enjoy holding him there for eternity. A week or two after my mom left, a package arrived in the mail for LB. He was very excited to see that it was his very own step stool! Thank you, Grandma Kathy. Now that he can stand independently at the sink it has allowed us to make the sink our winter water table. I got the idea from Play At Home Mom to add bubbles and ice to make it more of a sensory experience. Previously, I just let him play around with stuff in the kitchen. That works too but he definitely enjoyed the bubbles and we pretended to give his toys a bath. We did this earlier in the week and he played happily for about 30 minutes. Yay! I did have to give him a few stern warnings about not dumping an entire cup filled with water on the floor but other than that he was happy and I was happy.

LB loves that he can put the stool in front of the sink by himself. 

Yes, that is a pie slicer he is playing with.  

When he started getting bored I drained the bubbles and added some ice cubes. Every time he touched the ice he would said, "brrrr." But it didn't seem to bother him because he kept going back for more. I totally forgot to add food coloring. We'll do that next time. 

In the future, I will time this activity when I have stuff I need to do in the kitchen. That way I can supervise him and do what I need to do. I imagine we'll be doing this a lot over the next few months.