Mama Pea Pod: {Our Week Outdoors: Water Print Play}

No Outdoor Play linky party this week, folks, sorry. We are all busy with other things at the moment. Check back next week for its possible return. I'd still like to feature a couple of fave posts linked up last week, though:

Jamie at Hands On: As We Grow linked up her vibrant take on painting with coloured ice cubes - using cubes of actual paint! You have to see the lovely mess they made! (Oh, and the cool artwork, too!) Love it!

And another new blogger to share this week: Play Every Day: Active Family Lifestyles shared a post about taking your kids to catch crabs. Very informative, with lots of tips for a fun family day at the shore!

In the meantime, here's Our Week Outdoors...

As Princess Pea was out exploring with her new magnifying glass this week (more on that coming soon!), she happened to notice that she was leaving wet footprints on the deck.

It had rained briefly earlier in the day, which left small, wet patches on the wooden deck boards. She immediately set to work making more footprints.

Then she found small puddles of water that had pooled on the chair covers, so she dipped her hands in to make handprints alongside her footprints.

Then she started to create a splash painting using the water from the chair covers. She tried different methods of getting the water to splash onto the deck.

First she dipped her hands in and wiggled her fingers to make the drops fall. That resulted in small, light drops on the boards.

Then she tried swooshing the water directly off of the chair covers onto the deck. That made splatters across the deck.

Next she tried scooping up handfuls of water. But the water kept slipping through before she could get much of it over to the boards.

And finally, she tried soaking her hands and getting them as wet as possible, then shaking them vigorously. That seemed to result in the most satisfying splashes of 'paint'.

She even tried using an upturned table to smear the water around, but it didn't work very well ("it's too dry").

She was quite proud of how her masterpiece turned out in the end! And I really enjoyed watching how her mind was working to figure out how best to transfer the water.

(Art and science learning rolled into one self-initiated play experience! I love to see how it all unfolds.)