Summer time in Johannesburg means hot, sunny days. And there is nothing more refreshing on a hot, sunny day than some water play in the garden.
I found this awesome water balloon kit from a new toy shop recently that I thought would be perfect for this summer. It works by filling up a bunch of balloons at once (through a series of tubes) and then small elastic bands mean that you don’t need to tie each one. It really did save a whole lot of time (and quite possibly my fingers) however if you can’t find something similar, regular small balloons will work just fine.
I let my girls each choose a colour balloon and placed all of the filled and sealed balloons in a large plastic container. I placed two smaller containers a short distance away and instructed the girls to transfer their balloons from one container to the other.
I am not going to lie, there were a lot of casualties along the way and many balloons did not make it to their new home. It didn’t seem to matter though and soon enough the girls were having a ball running their balloons from one container to the other.
I wish I had managed to capture the completely unimpressed expression on my daughter’s face.
Once the containers were full, my eldest daughter decided that she needed to start lobbing the balloons at her dad! My youngest daughter wasn’t too happy about this at first, however she soon got into the spirit of things.
Dad is getting a good soaking.
After the water balloons had all been used up, my girls decided that it was time for a swim while mom cleaned up the mess (yay for me).
I really loved how, apart from being a lot of fun, this activity provided a lot more lessons than I had originally anticipated. They had to learn (fairly quickly) that they had to be gentle with the balloons or they would burst, teaching them about different materials and how to handle them. My eldest daughter commented that her smaller container was filled quite quickly, compared to the large container holding all the balloons, thus teaching my girls about spatial awareness. Throwing the balloons helped with their hand eye co-ordination and then, of course, there was the active play itself, leading to a fun-filled afternoon (my girls were fast asleep by 6pm).
I managed to hold back some of the unfilled balloons to use on another day, I can’t wait!