Children playing with drink bottles

[megs_95]

I'm having an issue with a few children who can't use drink bottles appropriately.

My children are three years old. One boy started tipping out his, and then other peoples, drink bottles when we were outside many weeks ago and it has continued to escalate. He started doing it inside by simply flicking the bottle around to spray the water on the floor or other children, and then began pouring it into different toys. Several other children, our more 'difficult' children, began doing it as well. It has reached a point where many many times a day, this group of children is spraying people with water, pouring it in toys, and tipping whole bottles of water onto the floor. Today, one child emptied a bottle all over a carpet mat, her own bed, and another's bed. It's getting ridiculous.

We've had many discussions about using the bottles properly, both to the individual children and at group times. When they tip their bottle out we were putting it out of reach (except for when they asked for a drink, and they were supervised until it was put back out of reach), but they don't care now, and just drink out of and empty the other children's bottles. Several times I have resorted to putting all the bottles out of reach, but it was just too impractical as a staff member was constantly having to get them down when a child wanted a drink, and we are supposed to provide the children free access to water so it's not a technique we can stick with.

I'm at a loss of what to do. The child who emptied her bottle on her (and another child's bed) then had to have a different blanket, not her special one, and she cried and carried on for ages and I tried to be consistent in saying "You tipped water on your blanket, so it needs to dry. Because you wet it, you need to have a different blanket" hoping that she would understand it was not the right thing to do... however after rest time, she was at it again.

It's so frustrating spending half the day mopping up water, it upsets the other children when their bottle is taken and its such as hazard constantly having water on the floor. But I don't know what to do. They think its a game - even cleaning it up. Every time they do it we get them to clean it themselves, but now they think it's hilarious and will empty a bottle and instantly run to the paper towels and beginning cleaning it/playing in it.

I'm so frustrated! Any ideas?

[Lorina]

Yes, I understand how frustrating this may be for you and the other educators...

At one of the centres I worked, we had water jugs in each room on the water table along with clean cups and a bucket for dirty cups. When a child wanted water they use a clean cup, press the button on the water jug to collect their water in a cup, drink it then put their dirty cup in the bucket.

Having the water jug meant that children didn't really play around with water as the water was contained within the jug and could only be accessed by pressing the button. It's not hard to use and even the toddlers were able to do it themselves.

An option is for you to empty the water bottles and when the children want water they have to fill up their water bottle to drink it (like a cup). When they finish tip the water out and place the empty water bottle back on the tray.

It also seems like some of the children may be interested in water play so that's why they may be mucking around with water. Even if it's a little wet outside you can still provide a water activity for the children to engage in inside. On a table fill up a cup with a little water and add some plastic containers/cups for each child so they can practice pouring water from one cup to another. Since you are using only a small amount of water it shouldn't be that messy and if it spills it can be easily cleaned up. Maybe providing an experience like this will satisfy their interest to stop playing around with the water bottles...

Hope this helps,

,
L.A

[megs_95]

We have incorporated a lot of water play recently, unfortunately there has been no let up with the drink bottles.

I do like the filling up/emptying bottles when they need a drink, just not sure how this will work in practice. There's often only two staff in my room and one of us is almost always supervising the bathroom, so it becomes really difficult to then have the other constantly getting drinks... especially days like today, when they will need drinks frequently.

I did mention the issue to my director yesterday and she wants to look into the behavioural reasons behind it, as these children have also been having some other behavioural issues. Hopefully that will turn up some ideas.

[Lorina]

Teach the children to fill up their bottles for themselves using a jug of water or an esky jug that way you and the other staff don't have to constantly do it for them. It will develop their self help skills and independence... If not, the only other option is to have "water breaks" where every half an hour or so you gather the children around sit them down give them water then put the bottles away, until the children learn not to play wit the water...

,
L.A

[fchaudari76]

Why are they needing to fill bottles so frequently? How quickly are they finishing a bottle of water???
Perhaps water coolers and individual cups would be a better option, or installing a bubbler.