Hammering Frozen Water Beads – Sensory Play for Kids
Hammering Frozen Water Beads is so much fun. Kids of all ages will love cooling down and burning off excess energy with this sensory activity during the hot summer months.
Disclosure: Water beads are a choking hazard. Adult supervision is required for all activities at all times.
The Summer break can be tough on parents who aren’t used to having their kids home every day. If you’re trying to get ready for this Summer, then start with these Summer activities for kids. Or invest in the Summer Activity Pack, which is filled with educational ideas for young kids.
Table of Contents
Materials Needed
- Water beads
- A large container
- A smaller container that fits in your freezer
- Hammers
- A freezer
How to Make a Hammering Frozen Water Beads Activity
1. Place your water beads into a plastic container and freeze overnight.
I found that the water beads stuck together when I placed them in a square container. While my kids loved breaking them apart anyway, I was disappointed that I ended up with one big block instead of small tiny frozen beads.
Next time, I’ll spread them out along a tray instead. So that it’s easier to break the individual pieces apart.
2. The next day, remove your water beads, break them apart and place them into a larger plastic container.
If you end up with a brick shape like this, then get a screwdriver out too. That way your kids can practice chiseling the beads too.
3. Add in your toy hammer, and any other sensory bin tools you want to play with.
If you like, you can also add in some cardboard tubes like in this water bead tunnels sensory bin. This is a great idea if you want to do a bit of STEM play at the same time.
Different Ways to Play
Hammer the water beads
Take a hammer and smash (with as much force as you like) the frozen beads into pieces.
While I was disappointed that the water marbles froze into a cube, because it wasn’t what I was aiming for with this activity. It proved to be fantastic for my kids, who loved smashing the big brick of water beads into pieces. In fact, they had more fun demolishing the large brick than they did aiming for each of the individual water beads.
I think that the next time that I do this activity, the easiest way will be to place the water beads into an ice cube tray instead. Then there will be a whole lot of ice cubes for the kids to have fun with.
Make a water bead tower
Once all of the water beads were hammered, my little girl gathered up all of the pieces and tried to make a tower with them. She enjoys pushing them around on the floor and rolling the small pieces in between her fingers.
Sweeping and cleaning
Once all of the playing was done, my little girl decided to sweep up all of the pieces for me. As you can imagine I was thrilled with this idea.
Using a dustpan and brush, she practiced sweeping and collecting all of the water bead pieces into a single pile.
What You’re Learning
Sensory
Like with all sensory experiences, this activity provides a lot of sensory input. The water beads feel wonderfully cold and a little bit rough when they’re frozen. This is refreshing on a particularly hot day, so I would recommend saving this activity for a real scorcher.
Hammers also make a loud banging sound when they hit the pavement. Explore the different sounds they make as you (carefully) hit different materials, such as the pavement, the large sensory tub and the water beads.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills refer to the small muscles in the hand and fingers. Developing these skills are important in being able to write when the kids go to school, as well as being able to complete tasks independently. (For example, dressing and feeding themselves).
Picking up the beads, and and hitting them with a hammer are all going to help young kids develop:
- Palmar grasp
- Hand-eye coordination
- Hand strength
Gross Motor Skills
Hammering is a wonderful way to help children build upper body strength. It’s also a great way to help young children let off some excess energy.
Life Skills
Using a dustpan and brush is a life skill that children will need to learn. We take this for granted as an adult because for us, cleaning is a never ending chore. However children can still use these everyday objects to play and learn.
STEM
There are a few different STEM activities that you can explore with this water bead play idea.
Science – talk to your children about cold vs warm, and how this can change the state of a substance. We usually do this with warm water, but water beads can still teach our children that freezing water makes it solid and cold.
Math – Count the water beads as you hammer them. This is the perfect way to get your kids to practice counting to 10 or 20, all while they play.
Summer Themed Sensory Play Ideas to try
There are so many fun ways to engage in sensory play this summer, and they don’t all center around the water table. Younger children, like toddlers and preschoolers will love playing with these fun ideas.
- Sun Sensory Bin
- Ocean Small World and Sensory Bin
- Ice Cream Sensory Bag
- Mini Ice Aquariums
- Moana Sensory Bin
For more ideas, take a look at these 25 Summer Sensory Activities.
Summer Activity Pack
Educational printables for preschoolers and kindergarteners for this Summer.
Are you going to try this Hammering Frozen Water Beads Activity with your kids?
Don’t forget to pin the idea for later.
