Aquadoodle!

I recently accepted a position working in Early Intervention here in Massachusetts, providing home based intervention to children under the age of three. Each week I fill my toy bag like Santa Claus with a few new and exciting toys to help teach children and their parents some new developmental skills.

This week I took along Aquadoodle. When you fill the small pen with water and draw on the mat, it gets wet and turns your markings blue. The mat is large enough for more than one child to pay with, though it only comes with one pen, so I may need to go purchase another as I tend to be in homes with multiple children! This mat is recommended for children ages 2 and up.

Parents have been loving this large mat simply because no matter what else kids try to color on with the pen, it leaves absolutely NO MESS other than drops of WATER! Once you wet the mat it does take a bit for it to dry, but since I have about 20 minutes in my car between visits, it’s usually pretty dry after that timeframe.

Here are some developmental ideas for this Aquadoodle Mat:

– Encourage your child to draw simple lines, curves and shapes after you draw them first

– Draw pictures and encourage them to use their language to guess the picture

– Draw half of a picture (left side) and have your child draw the other side (right side)

– I’ve even used this as a system where during mealtimes we draw a picture of what the child will eat first, followed by what they will eat next. This is a great way to get those picky eater kiddo’s to try something new first, when they can earn a few bites of something they really like after!

– When drawing children can lie on their tummies to develop more strength or the mat can be hung up on a wall to provide a portable easel. It can also be rolled for storage and is lightweight for travel.

– Older children may enjoy drawing a person, copying letters, writing numbers, making dot to dots or creating mazes!

Spinmaster provided this Aquadoodle Mat free for the purpose of this review. The opinions expressed in this post are purely the bloggers own.