Opportunities to educate your children are always present, and the best part is that kids are like sponges for knowledge. Summer is always a good time to keep up with their education as it makes the adjustment period back to school much easier. Moreover, your kid might be entering schooling for the first time, and you might want to prepare them for what to expect. No matter the reason, here are four fun learning activities you can do with pool noodles at home.
Before You Begin
Before creating these enriching and helpful learning activities, you will need some basic supplies. Here is what you will need:
- Pool noodles
- Bread knife
- Sharpie or marker
- Ruler
- Balloons or inflatable beach ball
Honor Trading Company has green pool noodles in bulk and many more colors available, so the learning never has to stop. You will find yourself surprised at everything you can do with pool noodles.
Sensory Bath
A sensory bath is quite useful for children to help acquaint themselves with their surroundings and explore how objects interact with water. Sensory play helps promote problem-solving, curiosity, and adventure and develops crucial motor skills.
It’s quite simple to incorporate this activity into your child’s bath time. Grab a pool noodle and use your bread knife to cut it horizontally into about four-inch pieces. Then, run the bath as you usually would, add in the pool noodle bits, and encourage your kids to play with them. It helps to show them how to play: stack, dunk, and watch as they float.
Learn Fractions
It’s no secret that learning fractions is a challenge for many children—it is difficult to imagine these concepts in their minds. Teaching fractions with pool noodles at home is a great activity to help them learn and think abstractly.
Measure your pool noodle to one foot long, cut it, and label it with the number “1.” This is what your kids will use as a reference. Then, take another piece of your noodle, measure and cut it to one foot, and then cut it in half evenly. Label both pieces as “1/2.” You may then continue cutting other foot-long noodles into four and six pieces evenly, labeling each piece with the correlating fraction, 1/4 and 1/6.
Play Baseball
You can introduce your kids to sports while keeping everything safe with pool noodle baseball. This is a great way to include younger kids and teach them hand-eye coordination. To do this activity, blow up a bunch of balloons or beach balls and have a couple of pool noodle “bats.” It is best to use a whole noodle as it allows kids more leverage to hit the ball, but you can also cut it in half. That’s all you have to do to prepare, and then the kids can get playing.
Alphabet Tower
It is so important for kids to know their ABCs, and you can help teach them the alphabet with pool noodles. To do this, cut your pool noodle into four-inch pieces, the same way you did for bathtime. You will need 26 pieces. Label each piece with a correlating letter; it is a good idea to include both uppercase and lowercase writing. With your pool noodles ready to go, you can let the kids start creating their alphabet tower.