Age Range: 2+ Early Years Foundation Stage can use the Water Wall to meet many of the different Early Learning Goals. Using the Water Wall as a group activity, the children will develop their communication and language development and be able to answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions based around their play. It introduces them to scientific and mathematical ideas, meeting both the ELG12 via problem-solving, and ELG14 through investigating the world around them.
KS1 and KS2 will benefit from using the Water Wall to explore scientific questions and ideas, link to writing instructions in English and develop mathematical thinking and vocabulary. The children can answer and explore scientific questions, develop and test their own ideas and use scientific vocabulary to explain their findings. Using cross-curricular links, the children can then write their own instructions on how they designed their experiment, or write an explanation about what happened and why. Not only this, but you can explore weight, mass and capacity using the Water Wall, thus meeting many more Maths objectives too.
One of the key features of the Water Wall is the whiteboard background. Children can write equations, ideas, explanations or vocabulary on the wall to help as they play. Teachers can write a list of key ideas or key words that they wish their class to use as they explore. Learning doesn’t need to stop once playtime begins. Using the innovative whiteboard background, thought provoking questions can be written up to encourage children to think and explore during playtimes. Not only does this demonstrate learning through play, but children will be reading, discussing and using high-level vocabulary while playing – incidental learning at it’s best.
