Improve your child's gross motor skills by providing her with tools to help pour sand and water. In a sand box, give her different types of shovels and scoops along with cups, bowls and buckets. Watch her scoop sand from the box into a bowl, then pour it into a bucket. This will help develop her arm and hand muscles as well as her hand-eye coordination. This also works with water, although not as many tools are needed. Two matching cups allow the child to pour water back and forth, which is exciting for kids. This activity can help teach your child that as water spills, the once-full cups will become less full. Your child will learn about the concept of full and empty.
Help your child play with different objects that float or sink. Try ice cubes, wooden and metal spoons, small twigs, a toy boat or a rock. Not only will he enjoy manipulating the different items in the water, he will learn that objects that look heavy, like wooden spoons, don't always sink. Talk to him about why objects float or sink. Also, try pouring a tiny amount of sand in a zip-top bag and lay it on top of the water. It should float. Then, have your child help you pour a little more sand in the bag. Try it again to see if it still floats. If it does, continue adding sand until it sinks. This playful activity helps your child learn more about the properties of how weight affects an object's ability to float.
Wet sand behaves differently than dry sand. Have your child push a handful of dry sand and examine the final product: a small, collapsing mound of sand. Wet the sand, and have her push it again. Talk to her about the final product, which should be a taller, thicker, more stable sand structure. Continue this activity by having her fill a bucket with dry sand and pour it out, then repeating with a bucket of wet sand, which is more likely to hold the bucket's shape.
Use a scale to show your child how to weigh the sand. This activity will help her learn the concepts of empty and full as well as more than and less than. Help her fill a bucket with dry sand and place it on the scale. Record the weight. Then, help her fill the bucket with wet sand and weigh it. Talk about any weight difference between wet sand and dry sand. Also, weigh the bucket when it's empty, half full and completely full to show her that different amounts of sand weigh more.
Washing a doll can be a soothing activity for boys and girls. Because children can relate this activity to their own bath times, many find it to be relaxing and a way to express their feelings. Let your child choose his water-safe toy to bathe, even if it's a dinosaur or action figure. Help him learn about personal hygiene by showing him the proper way to wash the doll, and himself. Allow him quiet time to wash the doll independently, and make sure he has a wash cloth, soap and bath toys, just like he would in his own bath. This allows him to express himself through imaginative play and develop motor skills. Encourage him to wring out the cloth and feel how much lighter it is when the water is squeezed out to help introduce math into the activity.