sensory baby play | float & sink pool time

I was so looking forward to summer for many reasons...no school, sleeping in, time at home with {e}, sleeping in, baseball, sleeping in, and taking {e} swimming. Growing up I was such a water baby, so I was excited to introduce {e} to the pool. We started by getting a small, one ring inflatable pool for the yard. I only put about 4 inches of water in it, and of course watched {e} like a hawk the whole time. And, she loved it! She enjoyed splashing around, running her hands through the water, and poking the inflatable sides. After introducing her to the pool, the next day I decided to bring a little learning in. I grabbed a few different items that would sink and float for her to explore.

You can see in the picture that I grabbed a couple rings from her ring stacking toy, a rubber duck, a full water bottle, and a silicone whisk from the kitchen. As I put each one in the pool, I held it up and told her what it was. Then I put it in the water and told her if it sank or floated. Once all the items were in the pool, she really went to town.

You can see that she really enjoyed the whisk...in fact, she played with it the rest of the day! She also explored the water bottle for a little, but didn't pay much attention to the floating items. Looking back on it, I think that is probably because those were toys she has seen before, and she is more familiar with the concept of floating from bath time. We spent about 15 minutes in the pool on this day- with her fair skin I'm afraid of being outside too long, even with sunscreen {disclaimer- she does have a hat, but had taken it off at this point- we're working on it:)} But, {e} was engaged the whole time! Now, do I expect her to know, remember and understand the concept of floating and sinking after this? No! But, the more she is introduced to these things, and the more experiences I can give her, the better! Like I mentioned above, I could tell she was familiar with the concept of floating to a certain extent from bath time...so the more I expose her to other things, the more familiar she will become with them!