“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s my favourite time of the week again! The Weekly Kid’s Co-Op is here! And We had sooooo many neat and colourful ideas linked up last week! At the bottom of this post I’d like to share one of my favourites with you!

Today we are re-purposing yet another neglected toy. The marble run. It doesn’t seem to get a whole lot of action lately so I thought I’d give it a little boost. Little did I know that the kids would enjoy this activity as much as they did. The word “epic” was thrown about a time or two. And all I did was add water.

I brought the marble game up to the water table and encouraged them to each build their own marble run…

I asked them to put on a smock and they looked at me like I was nuts! Then I brought out the bottles of coloured water and they began to see where I was going with this and they grinned a sly and mischievous smile. They were ready…

Oh, but it was pretty! The water swirled together at the bottom creating a wonderous pool of colour!

And they just kept going, and going, and going. I think I filled the water bottles about 7 times each!

Such great practice for small-motor control and eye-hand coordination…

At first, the little girls just watched in wonder…

And as the pool at the bottom filled up, they joined in the play in their own way…

I thought this is where the play would stop. But I was mistaken! The boys decided to put the marbles down their runs at the same time as they poured the water. They said they wanted to make a water slide for their marbles. I said, “why not?” I love a good experiment as much as they do!

It was a success. The boys raced their marbles to the bottom and shouted,

“Again! Again!”

The water splashed over the sides during this experiment, so I was glad I had covered the carpet side of the floor with a splash mat!

They tried all sorts of different ways to play. The littlest boy even designed his own marble roller with two bottles…

He tipped it back and forth and back and forth, watching the marble carefully as it rolled from one bottle to the other.

And still the play continued. The bigger boys played again after lunch when the little ones had gone for naps. All in all, I’d call the activity a success!

Giving toys a new purpose is a great way to get more play time out of them. Especially if you don’t have a lot of room to store and rotate. I find the best way to think of a new way to use a toy, is to try to imagine what I’d like to do with it if I was small again, where everything is an adventure and the sky is the limit.

Now I’d like to share with you one of my favourites from last week’s Co-Op link-ups…

The blog is called At Home With Ali and her post she linked up on the Co-Op is brilliant and full of colour and imagination. She put together a little rock pool and it is bright, whimsical and I really wanted to play in it! Don’t just take my word for it…take a look!

It’s pretty isn’t it? For the entire post and it’s instructions, click HERE.

Now it’s your turn to link up! And don’t forget to grab the badge for your blog so all your followers can come and browse through all the other fabulous ideas for young children!

Click here on this little blue guy below to link up!