With the unseasonably warm hot and humid days we had here in New England last week, I was trying to come up with something new and fun in the water play department. Given the season “witches brew” came to mind. One of my most favorite memories from Big Brother’s preschool years is how much he loved a particular Halloween song he learned… Stirring the Brew. I think there are a couple of variations of it but from what I recall it is something to this affect.
Well what better invitation to play than a Witches Brew?
So what did we put in our witches brew? Anything and everything Halloween I could find. My thought process here was the more the better and I wanted lots of different textures. I wanted him to really explore this bin! Here’s a peak at everything before the water went in.
- Eyeball ping pong balls from the dollar store
- Plastic spiders, snakes & bugs also from the dollar store
- Black & orange feathers
- Various glass gems in Halloween colors, including some really cool skull & bone ones that I found at our local Christmas Tree Shop
- Some fall leaves from the dollar store
- A couple of sticky balls leftover from birthday party favors
Right before it was time to play I added some spooky purple water. I set the witches brew, along with some spoons, bottles and a funnel out on our deck. I was very anxious to see how the Mister would play with this invitation.
C was in awe at first. I don’t think he really knew what to make of it. He spent the first few minutes just taking it all in. Pointing to objects and identifying them. Some things he was excited to see… other’s not so much. He did not like the feel of the wet feathers at all. He was so into exploring the bin itself he didn’t even notice the other tools I had provided for stirring, scooping and pouring until I pointed them out. He found a couple of favorite objects and played with them for awhile before deciding to try some scooping.
The only problem we ran into (however much it added to the ambiance of his play) was that it started to thunder just as we were getting into things so we had to move our brew inside. No problem! A few towels and we rocked it. Once we had gotten all reassembled he really went to town. I taught him the song [above]. We sang and he stirred, and stirred and stirred that brew!
Later he played a little mad scientist, adding some of the gems and ‘bones’ he found to bottles filled with water. His favorite activity was using the funnel and a test tube to fill the water bottles. There was a lot of “potion making” going on.
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