Despite parents' repeated attempts to prevent it, most children simply love to play with sand and water. They do not miss out on a single opportunity to ship away from under their parents' alert, watchful eyes to rollick in the sand and mess around with water. Most of us as parents have strong prejudices towards the 'wetness' and 'muddiness' that is associated with these two play materials. The truth is that playing with sand, mud and water provides innumerable opportunities for learning. Of course, it does require a little more alertness on the part of the adult to see that children do not throw mud or water over each other or dirty their clothes at the end of their play.

1. Tie an apron over your child's clothes.
2. Wash her hands, feet and face when she is through with the play.
3. Keep her away from these activities when she is suffering from cold, cough or fever.
4. Ensure that the sand or water that you provide is clean. For this you can have a small permanent pond and sandpit built if you have the space and the money. Otherwise, you can store water and sand in large shallow basins, trays or tubes.

Activities:

1. Provide your child with breakers, funnels, plastic toys and containers of different shapes and sizes and allow her to play in the sand or water with them. She not only has a good time but also understands concepts like shape, size and volume and gets an idea about conservation of amounts. Water play also helps her understand concepts like light and heavy, floating and sinking and about certain properties of water. Sand play fosters fine motor co-ordination as the child makes 'laddoos', 'balls' and 'pancakes', 'houses', 'bridges', 'caves' and 'castles'. It also nurtures the child's imagination, as she enacts roles and expresses emotions while creating these sandcastles. Digging and pouring sand in containers of different sizes is a primitive and preliminary experiences of concepts of shape and measurement, which will develop later on.




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