Children love being outdoors, running around and finding ways to play especially with water. Since kids love to play with water, washing the car is an excellent way to get children involved in an activity while enjoying natural play with water.

When you mix kids with water, you usually end up with a fun time. Add to that some soap, sponges, bikes, and a dirty minivan, and you have tons of water fun for kids! At a recent summer camp, we set up a car wash for the kiddos! Needless to say, hours of laughter and water splashing ensued.

Not only the kids get to wash the car but they also learn about car detailing. What good about detailing a vehicle to children is that they get to train their motor skills and improve on them. Also, it can train their concentration skill. Surprisingly, children love to pretend and play with polish and wax too. Though they won’t do it correctly, but it’s a great activity to do with them nonetheless. Just pretend that you run a car detailing services and the kids are your detailers. I bet all of you will have a lot of fun! You can learn more about the difference between polish vs, wax, here.

What you need

• Sponges
• Soapy water
• Buckets
• Cloths

Activity

• Using buckets, soapy water and cloths, give your car a good wash.
• To rinse the car, turn on a hose and give it a good spray with the water at high pressure.
• Bikes, scooters and outdoor toys can be washed too.

Notes:

• Kids love to get involved in activities that 'help' mum and dad - and washing the car is the perfect job for them!
• If you have more than one child washing the car, fill up a bucket for each child and give each their own cloths for cleaning - this will avoid arguments later. Some of the best cloth option will be like chamois or waffle weave microfiber towels.

Playing with water is a fun activity that can lead to all sorts of imaginative activities - the run-off can be turned into a dam in the gutter, or the suds in the bucket can be used to 'write' on the car while it's being cleaned, the hose can make patterns on the dry pavement.

This turned out to be an amazing activity for the kids. Even better, it was incredibly simple to set up and clean up. Give it a try and I guarantee you and your kids will love it!