wonderful bath time ideas for children
• Make your own simple and soothing bath salts. Fill a jar with coarse sea salt. Add a few drops of essential oil—lavender is known to have a calming effect, so you may want to try that, or an essential oil fragrance of your choice. Some like to add dried lavender or other fragrant herbs to their bath salts. For ease of clean-up and avoidance of drain clogs, I prefer to leave the pretty herbs out. Mix. Sprinkle into the warm bath water at bath time for the fragrant, soothing, water and skin softening effect the salts induce.
• Play imagination-inspiring, or soft, calming instrumental music.
• Introduce bath toys—that come from the kitchen. A whisk swishes the water into swirls of lovely bubbles in soapy water. Holes poked in the sides of an empty yogurt container make a spraying fountain, when filled with water. Strainers, colanders, ladles and spoons are all fun kitchen tools to add to bath time fun.
• Have children go deep sea diving, like ours, above. Gems and stones* dropped to the water's depths make sparkling brilliance to search and retrieve—a bath time treasure hunt. *These playthings have made their way into the children's play so often—as I also shared in seeds of brilliance.
• Let them bathe with their swimsuits on. Few things bring such glee as swimming in a pretend pool, ocean or lake—right in their own bath tub. Ours go for a beach party swim with their swimsuits on. They have party straws dipped in (inventive) tropical juice drinks—our oldest child has created—waiting for them when they hop out of their imaginary waves. Our children sip their drinks, full of tropical fruit chunk confetti, on towels laid out on the floor. Sunglasses on, they read their magazines and books—just like you might on a real beach. Thinking of beaches—however imaginary— and in the middle of wintertime especially, makes bath-time more than just get-squeaky-clean-time.
It's imagination-filled play time. @ heather cahoon wordplayhouse
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