Four Fun Ways For Your Autistic Child To Play With Water Beads

Having a child with autism often causes you to have to try new fun ways for your child to play. Many autistic children have sensory issues that cause them to only enjoy touching things with certain textures. If your child is a fan of smooth surfaces, great things to incorporate into their daily routine is water beads. Water beads are small beads that grow in size when they are placed in water. Here are a few different ways your child can enjoy playing with the water beads.

Watch Them Grow

The first thing that your child can do with the beads is they can watch them grow. Simply place the beads in a large bowl and allow your child to pour water over them. They can watch the beads soak up the water and get larger.

Search for Buried Treasure

Once the beads are larger, you can place items in the bottom of the bowl and have your child search for them with a small spoon. Allow them to transfer the items to another bowl, using the spoon to cause them to use their hand-eye coordination.

Bounce Them into Small Cups

Once filled with water the balls become bouncy. Place small cups on the table and have your child bounce the balls into the cups. Have them keep score of how many they get into each cup. This will help them with their counting skills in a fun way. Be sure to have all beads that miss the cups picked up so that no one steps on them. It can create a mess if someone steps on one.

Fill Bottles with Them

Have your child use a small spoon to transfer the beads into a bottle using a funnel. Have them place the beads in a specific color order to create a pattern. This will help your child learn their colors and learn how to create a pattern on their own. They can keep the beads in the bottle and use is as a decoration or they can pour them out and make a new pattern again and again.

It is important for you to stay with your child at all times when they are playing with water beads. You do not want to risk your child putting the beads in their mouth because it could create a dangerous situation if they are swallowed. Water beads are very affordable and fun toy that can help children with their hand-eye coordination and their dexterity.