Rock Wash

Rocks, water and lots of pots and utensils made for an activity that entertained my son for over an hour, but best of all only took me five minutes to prepare.

Rock wash in action.

What you need:

- plastic storage tub filled with water

- Crayola blue bath colour dropz (I just used half a tablet)

- rocks and pebbles

- scoopers, tongs and pasta drainer

- plastic cup and measuring jug

- sponge and tea towel

- washing up bottle with a small amount of washing up liquid left in it

How it works:

This was not a planned activity but simply a 'how can I occupy my son so I can get on and cook dinner without him feeling like I'm ignoring him' activity. He asked for an ocean so I put half of a blue Crayola colour bath dropz in a plastic storage tub to give it a nice ocean colour. Then I threw in some large and small pebbles and rocks and loads of water play accessories. 

Water scooping.

To begin with my son was happy scooping and tipping the ocean water using the various tools available to him. Soon he decided that his ocean was in fact a bath for the rocks. He took it upon himself to scrub and rinse the rocks and then dry them off after.

Collecting rocks to be washed.

Rinsing the large rock.

Once his interest was starting to dwindle I gave him a washing up liquid bottle that had a small amount of liquid left in it. This was a huge hit. He loved squirting the rocks with the soapy bubbles and filling the bottle up over and over again to make more bubbles.

Squirting the bubbles on the rocks.

Soapy rock wash.

Fascinated by the continuous supply of bubbles from the bottle.

This kind of activity is my favourite in a way. Not planned and not structured, simply a few things chucked in a box and a toddler who loves playing with water.