Click here to read Cool Water Balloon Shape Matching for Kids on Hands On As We Grow®
Beat the heat and learn shapes with a fun water balloon shape matching activity for kids from Brigitte!
There’s no better way to beat the heat than with fun water activities! And water balloons are one of my favorite playtime tools!
It was a great idea to carry along some water balloons on a recent family visit, and I am in fact delighted that I did this.
I saw a 3-year-old niece play around and cool off, and loved it. She enjoyed so very much running jumping, and throwing!
As I was filling the water balloons, I decided to incorporate color recognition and shape practice into the activity, too. Like so many of my favorite activities, this idea took less than 5 minutes from inspiration to playing!
Wet & Wild Water Balloon Shape Matching for Kids
Balloon activities may be both educational and fun, but be careful with them. Balloons are a Hayaking hazard Keep children under your constant supervision when they are playing with balloons. Look after any debris as soon as a balloon bursts
To set up your own water balloon shape matching activity, you’ll need:
- Water balloons, 3 different colors
- Permanent marker
- Sidewalk chalk, same three colors as balloons
- Space to play
First, I filled 12 total water balloons, four each of three different colors. I set these balloons carefully aside while I finished prepping.
Spur of the moment, I opted to add shapes and make it a matching activity!
On the yellow balloons I put circles, the pink balloons each had a triangle, and the blue balloons each had a square.
My niece was eager to begin the activity and offered to carry the bucket of water balloons to the driveway.
Heavy lifting is a great gross motor activity for kids!
Outside I put in a circle, square and triangle on the drive. I tried the same coloring as the balloons, yellow, pink and blue.
I requested my niece to give me the right colors of the chalks. It was a fantastic activity to help fix her colors knowledge that we were matching.
Then, the fun began!
Break Water Balloons & Match Shapes
My niece had a challenge: break the water balloons into the correct shape. For example, the yellow balloons needed to be dropped into the yellow circle because they were a) yellow and b) had a circle on them.
Make a water gun target practice for more active summer fun!
As she grabbed the balloons, she announced the color and the shape. Then, she pointed to the shape it needed to go to.
She tried throwing the balloons, but they didn’t break easily since they were so small.
So, she stomped on them.
A couple of times the water balloon rolled away from her.
She had fun chasing them and matching the colors and shapes as she broke them.
It didn’t take long for her to break all twelve of the balloons, and she was asking for more. This time, she wanted to help fill the balloons.
She placed the balloon openings on to the end of the nozzle and turned the water on and off (great fine motor practice!). We counted the balloons as we filled them.
This time we ended up with much larger water balloons. The chalk shapes definitely lasted longer when we used the smaller balloons.
As a result, I had to draw several large shapes as the chalk disappeared.
Once all the water balloons were filled we ran out so my niece enjoyed jumping in the wet footprints left. She screamed, jump in the puddle, jump in the puddle.
