Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Water Beads

Water beads are the latest and the most fun sensory experience I have seen in a long time!  They are so wonderful! They begin as tiny hard balls that are the  size of a seed bead.  You put them in water for about 2-3 hours and then the tiny beads grown and become slippery and a bit squishy!  They come in every color and they even bounce!  I have started my class using them in small amounts at individual station in this box.  I used bubble grabbers to pick them up.  I got those at Lakeshore Learning and use them for everything.  I love them!  I will be adding googly eyes later this week.  A tip to keep them fresh:  Keep a strainer handy and rinse them each night and add a little fresh water.  This keeps them the right size as they will shrink back to small if left out long enough.  Get some today!  They are sold as water beads in store like Michaels in the gardening or plant section.  They are also sold in the kids toy isle for boys in the toy guns.  There is a gun that shoots them called the Xploderz and these beads refill it.  They cost about $4 for 1000 of these beads.     In the girls section of toys they are sold as Orbeeze. They sell refill packets too.  All about the same price and all of products do the same thing. I highly recommend these!  My students stand in line to wait for a turn!  It is nuts!  I am going to get brave and fill my whole sensory table up soon and add the shaving cream.  That will be a site to see I am sure!  So what are you waiting for...go grab some of these today for your class!