Pouring with Preschoolers

This pouring activity was a HUGE hit with my preschoolers!   I was inspired by my friend Jen, from TV-Free Toddler Time.   I love her blog!   She has so many simple entertainment ideas from years of experience raising ten kids.

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What you will need to pour with you kids and keep your sanity:

• A variety of different sized containers
• A big sheet to limit the mess and hopefully salvage some of the wheat
• A big bucket of wheat

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Jen used rice, you could also use dirt, a box of instant potatoes, dried beans, etc.   We just used wheat as we have it on hand in big 5 gallon buckets for baking our bread.

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Opportunities for Learning with a Pouring Activity:

Practice hand and eye coordination.   We got some measuring cups recently from Pourfect Bowl.   They advertised them as great for kids as they are formed to make spilling a rare occurence.   I was actually surprised.   They made this activity a lot less messy than it potentially could have been (rubber on the bottom makes them harder to accidentally tip, and if you do tip them, the way the sides are curved makes the contents stay inside the bowl).   The kids got to practice hand and eye coordination as they poured the wheat from one container to the next.

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Explore amounts.   Which container holds more, the one that is deep and narrow?   The one that is big but flat?   The square tub?   The round salad bowl? I really wish I was able to spend more time talking with them about the activity.   Unfortunately, they were too distracted by the newness of this activity for many science experiments.     We’ll do those in a later post, hopefully.

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Textures.   This was especially enthralling to my youngest, she loved dipping her whole arm into the bucket and the feeling of the wheat squishing in her fingers.   She also enjoyed helping me clean up and picking up the grains individually.

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Overall, this was a lot less messy than I anticipated!   I didn’t even have to vacuum the floor when we were done, just take the sheet out and shake what I couldn’t put back into the bucket.   Who knows, we might have some wheat growing in our backyard this summer.

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Added this fun activity to the collection on We Play. Check it out!