Great games to play with water

Babies up to 18 months

• Hold your baby while he ‘swims’ in the bath, and let water trickle over his body so he can discover how it feels. 
• Teach him to make a splash by patting your hands on the surface of the water in the bath, or in a washing-up bowl. His own little pats will gradually become big, lusty splashes – to his immense delight. 
• Introduce him to tipping and pouring with bath toys or plastic cups and beakers in a washing-up bowl. 

Toddlers

• Do the washing up! A shallow bowl of water and a plastic tea set will keep your toddler busy for hours (and will be good training for later life).
• Give large paint brushes and a ‘paint pot’ of water, then let her paint the garden fence or outside of your house.
• Let her water your flowers. Give a big bucket of water and a small watering can (or even an empty milk carton), and marvel at the way she will keep coming and going to refill her can (while doing something useful!).

Preschoolers

• Provide sponges and buckets of sudsy water for a ‘car wash’. Let him wash his bikes, scooters and cars before hosing them off. 
• Let your child paint himself (or his friends or, if you’re game, you!) with finger or bath paints, then let him shower off in the sprinkler.
• Turn an inflatable paddling pool into an imaginary world by tipping in a few plastic sharks, ducks, fairies, or whatever your child enjoys. And if there’s a handy sandpit ‘island’ nearby, so much the better.

School-age children

• To play hosepipe tag, the child who’s It squirts another with water. That child then has the hosepipe – and so on…
• Create your own water chute with a large inflatable paddling pool, and position the end of your garden slide so that the children land slap bang in the pool. 
• Dig out a long piece of polythene. One child aims the hose onto it while the others run and see how far they can slide. Add some washing-up liquid for an extra-fast thrill.

Don't miss... Family activities for a day at the beach Plus... How to take brilliant photographs of your child