So, you may have noticed that things have slowed down over here in TinkerLand? I’ve been busy playing outdoors with the kids, traveling with family, and stepping away from the computer for a bit. My husband is in the throws of writing a book (yay!), but it’s also put a small cramp on my downtime for the summer. I’m still here, just not as active. I’ll plan to post about three times a week throughout the summer, and I hope you’ll stick with me until I can find a little more time.
Yesterday was surprisingly rainy and cold, but we’ve been blessed with some wonderful warm weather. My kids love being outside, and playing with water makes it even better! My eldest has a thing for water balloons, and I’ve stock-piled tons of them for spontaneous summer fun. She took on the challenge of filling them herself, and was so proud when she was finally able to fill one up. This was a good exercise in hand-eye coordination and a physics lesson in projectile motion.
She threw the balloons at all sorts of things, comparing how easily they broke (or didn’t). The grass was a big surprise to me, as the balloons broke as soon as they touched the blades. To make it more of a game, I drew a big target on the sidewalk with chalk and the sidewalk was quickly littered with brightly colored balloon fireworks. Lots of smiles from the neighbors who walked by (and didn’t get sprayed by our silliness).
I loved the way the sidewalk looked afterwards — full of water puddles and bright, broken balloons. So much fun!
What are your favorite summer water activities?
This post was shared with It’s Playtime
Let me know if you if you find anything cool to do with the leftover broken balloons.
Haha! Nothing yet, Jena. There’s always collaging, I suppose. If anyone has an idea, please feel free to share it here!
We’ve been playing a lot with balloons in all forms. J had a birthday in the beginning of June and for a gift he received a pump that blows water or air to fill balloons. It came with about 1 million balloons. This has kept us very busy, but now to use the broken bits. I have a couple posts about what we’ve done if you’d like to take a look. Let me know if you come up with anything different. We’ll try anything.
we love water balloons too!
our recent fun has been making tin can lanterns. http://bit.ly/lC8Gn3
they are so cool and refreshing to make, and then when the chunks of ice start coming out – there is more fun (crushing the ice with hammers, trying to walk on the ice like ice skates, etc.)
Amy, thanks for the link! I remember making tin can lanterns back before having kids. And any project that can extend into two or three other activities gets bonus points in my book!
I have a bag full of water balloons and I think I may know what we will be doing today!
Have fun, Jill!
This is another great activity where you combining physical activity with visual impact. Also, it makes me feel young again! I wonder: How might coloring (food-based) would work in the water?
Chris, this is part of my new mantra — combining physical activity with whatever else we’re doing makes everything twice as fun. Food coloring — now why didn’t I think of that? Good thing there are many more weeks of summer left to try it out!
GREAT idea! Must try it this weekend- supposed to be VERY hot.
Thanks, Krista 🙂
I just hope you picked up all those beautiful little bits of balloons after! Pretty they might be, but not good to leave out.
Of course, Christy! As annoying as they are, we wouldn’t want our pesky squirrels to eat them 🙂
water. water! everywhere there’s water!! I love summer. Spencer’s favorite is if I put the hose on just a tad, he throws the water through the air and draws delightful wizzy wags. Simone is bonkers so she just runs wild and silly in water. She’ll go through a bucket of water balloons in two minutes:) water in squirt bottles is a huge hit. oh and rac. three tinkerlab posts a week is plenty. it’s perfect! any more and I feel bad that I can’t keep up with the projects. and I need to keep up. it’s my secret way of staying connected. 🙂
Oh, N loves that too. The other day she was waving one of our irrigation hoses around and rambling on about how she was making patterns on the bricks. For all the work of filling water balloons, it’s insane how quickly they go through them! 2 minutes sounds about right!! 🙂
We’ve been playing with these balloons lately as well. I was surprised as how the balloons would bounce off our car, shoes, even clothes. One thing I did I filled our old baby pool and dropped a bunch of balloons into it. M loved just sitting in the pool surrounded by all the floating balloons, playing “sink or float” with them. It was a simple activity, but it kept him occupied for a long time. I’ve been meaning to modify our “target practice” by dropping an old sheet on the ground and adding some food coloring to the balloons before feeling them with water. Might try it tomorrow.
Why didnt I think of this? What a great idea. I wonder if I can persuade my bid kids into blowing up the balloons.
Thanks for posting.
I created a modified version of this for a 4th of July cookout. I made it bigger with target squares that were as wide as the sidewalk with score amounts like “1 bazillion” and “negative infinity” and drew different throw-from lines for big and little kids. All of the kids loved it (though one of the adults instructed the big kids to throw their final volley at me). Thanks for the great idea!