TODAY'S HOURS: 8 AM – 6 PM

TODAY'S HOURS: 8 AM – 6 PM

children playing outside in a water sprinkler

Build STEM Skills While Keeping Cool with These Refreshing Water Activities

It looks as if this is going to be a long, hot summer. Time to get creative and find fun ways to get your family outside and moving without melting.

One solution: Just add water. Outdoor activities that include water can be cooler—especially when some splashing is allowed. Playing with water also has another advantage—it’s a great way to introduce some basic STEM concepts while having fun.

In fact, that’s what kids at the Water World Camp at FWBG | BRIT are doing this week. Water World is sold out, but you can still enjoy some fun, water-based activities at your own home.

Set Paper Boats Afloat

You can find several sources online for making paper boats that will reliably float—here’s one to get you started. Making boats can become a craft project of its own. How can you decorate the boats? What kind of flags or other unique features will your family add?

Then take your boats outside and start floating them. You can do this in a plastic bin full of water or in a kiddie pool, or if you have access to a swimming pool or a body of water, that’s great. (Be safe and never leave children unsupervised around water!) Ask lots of questions: How long does the boat float? How fast can you make it go? If you add things to the boat—like small plastic figures—how many can it hold?

From here, the sky’s the limit. Think about ways to make your boats last longer. For example, you can find instructions online for coating paper with beeswax to make it waterproof. Or try building boats out of different materials. These can be natural items you find outside—like leaves and twigs—or with materials like LEGO® bricks. You can even make boats out of discarded Babybel cheese wrappers. It’s a great way to have fun while learning about concepts like buoyancy.

Floating blooming paper flowers activity
Photo from Mombrite.com

Make Paper Flowers Bloom

This is a simple activity that teaches a fun lesson about water. First, help your child cut out paper flowers with multiple petals. (For detailed instructions, including photos and videos, this site is helpful.) You can color the flowers any way you like–make them beautiful!

Then fold all of the petals of the flower inward. Place the folded flowers into a container of water with the petals facing upward. Then watch as the petals slowly unfold and the flowers begin to bloom.

Photo from Mombrite.com.

Talk to you children about what they think is making the petals open. Then explain to them the science behind the activity. In short, paper is made up small wood fibers. These fibers absorb the water and swell up, causin the folds to slowly open. This site and this site have good child-friendly explanations.

You can experiment with different kinds of paper, from tissue paper to thick poster paper, and see how the flowers behave differently. Stars also work well for this activity. You can also experiment with other shapes–how well do they bloom when wet?

Child playing with a DIY water course
Photo from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls.

Create a Water Course

This activity involves securing LEGO® bases to a metal or plastic tray, setting it up at a slight angle, and running water from a garden hose down the tray. You and your kids can then begin building canals and dams to channel or contain the water. Older children can experiment with building water wheels spun by the water.

These instructions are only the start. You could use different materials to build your course, or combine plastic bricks with other objects. Why not send different objects through the stream—maybe even the paper boats from the first activity? Try varying the flow of water or the angle at which you position the tray. Talk to your kids about each change before you make it, and ask them to guess what will happen. This is a great way to model scientific thinking—you are coming up with a hypothesis and testing it.

The summer may be hot, but a little water goes a long way to cool you down—and with activities like these, you and your family will never stop learning and never stop having fun.

Related Articles

Herbarium specimen from AABP project - Blakea spindet
Newsletter

Armchair Botany and the Andes to Amazon Biodiversity Program: Volunteers Make Scientists’ Hard Work Accessible

Important botanical science happens in the field. Researchers tramp across habitats, sometimes in remote and rugged regions of the world, collect plant samples, document the distribution of species and study ecosystems in action. Later those scientists return to the lab with boxes of specimens, and a new and equally important phase of research begins. Scientists label, mount and digitize specimens to make them accessible to the global science community. They become a resource that can be studied in multiple contexts–as part of an ecosystem or as a member of a particular plant family, for example.

Read More »
Group of students practice tai chi
Learn

Meditation in Motion: Discovering Tai Chi

Slow, deliberate, beautiful movement is the essence of tai chi. A practice that melds the mind and the body, tai chi improves balance and muscle strength while reducing stress and calming the mind. And you can learn all about it in the Garden’s upcoming wellness series, 24-Form Tai Chi.

Read More »
Two yellow lemons on a tree
Garden

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Citrus Trees

Picture it: you wake on a lovely fall day, walk onto your patio and pick a Satsuma mandarin from your very own tree. You peel back back the bright orange skin and bite into a perfectly ripe, tart yet sweet, orange. This could be you–with a little time, a little knowledge and a citrus tree of your own. The good news? You can find the knowledge and the trees at the upcoming Fall Plant Sale. The time you’ll need to provide yourself.

Read More »
Spray of water from an outdoor fountain
Garden

The Wonder of Water: Take your Garden to the Next Level with a Water Feature

We love our water features at the Garden, especially in the heat of summer. The long, tranquil basin that greets guests as soon as they enter the gates, the gushing fountain that stands in the center of the Rose Garden, the serene koi ponds of the Japanese Garden—there’s nothing else like the relaxing sound and sight of water. What if you could bring that peace and serenity back home with you? With a little time and effort, you can—with water features for your home garden.

Read More »
Mother and daughters on the way to school
Newsletter

Strengthen Family Connections with Back-to-School Traditions

The start of a new school year can be both stressful and thrilling. Certainly for families with school-age children, it’s a time of nervous preparation, of anxiety about the year ahead, of shopping and scheduling and strategizing. But mixed into that stress is excitement about new things to learn and new friends to meet. To foster excitement and reduce anxiety, Education Program Coordinator Joanne Howard encourages families to mark the start of the new school year by establishing family traditions.

Read More »