In this article, we review 5 of the best bath toys for children aged 6+. Bath toys are great to make bathtime fun for babies and toddlers. But many older children still have a bath most nights and want to have interesting toys that they can play with and have a bit of fun with. It's even better if we can find bath toys that encourage children to explore and learn through their play.

How to choose the best bath toys for older children?

To choose great bath toys for children of Primary School age, the main thing is VERSATILITY - you want the toys to be as open ended as possible so your youngster can think of lots of different games and experiments to do with them night after night.

Educational bath toys work really well. At the same time as playing, children can learn and think. Bathtime is the perfect time for creativity and helping ideas and concepts to sink in. So, here are our top five bath toys for children who have already started school:

1) Best bath toy for mental maths – Giant Foam Playing Cards

An ideal educational bath toy to develop mental maths and numeracy skills, these foam playing cards are great if you have two or more children in the bath (or an enthusiastic adult nearby) and feel like playing card games in the bath. Snap, Cheat, Pelmanism etc - are all extra fun with splashing water to add to the mix.

You can also play games to practise maths, for example: pick four cards at random and see how you could +,-,x, / to get as close as possible to a particular two digit number.  Or each person has to stick a card to their head and ask yes or no questions to find out what it is - is it an odd number? Is my number above 5? See who can work out their card most quickly by asking nice broad questions.

Click here to see Giant Foam Playing Cards

2) Best bath toy for science skills – Dribble Lab

If you're looking for a toy to develop science skills, it's hard to beat Dribble Lab. This bathtime science kit gets children investigating water and developing key skills including: observing, measuring and developing theories as to why things happen.  It has a range of different bit of scientific equipment that children love experimenting with - a magnifying glass that works really well, a compressible funnel and several measuring containers such as beakers, a jug and a measuring cylinder.  It's great to watch what experiments older children can come up with.

Click to see Dribble Lab.

3) Best bath toy for building - Splashy Towers

When you're looking for the best bath toy for building and creating, then Splashy Towers is just right. This set contains 29 different 3d foam shapes and a large floating base to build on. It is really popular with children who have started school, as well as younger siblings and there is lots of scope for different creations and games with these colourful blocks.

Older children can challenge themselves to make interesting structures: symmetrical or very tall towers and see whether they can withstand tidal waves. The set comes with an information leaflet with ideas for lots of other games that children can play e.g. to find different 2d shapes that are the faces, or feel the 3d shapes and guess what they are.

Click here to see Splashy Towers.

4) Best bath toy for maths skills  - Ocean Counters 

If you're looking for a fun way to help your child get more confident with their maths then the Ocean Counters set is a great bath toys for numeracy.  The set contains 5 each of ten different ocean creatures so they also work well for number games - great for adding and subtracting or even grouping and sharing to practise multiplication and division.  Or there are lots of other games a child and carer could play together with them: make matching pairs of creatures with your eyes closed by feeling which animals are the same shape.

This set of lovely ocean creatures such as whales, sharks and rays work brilliantly for imaginative games with exciting animals roaming around the bath. These animals are made by Learning Resources and designed for classroom use so are extremely well made and long-lasting.

Click here to see Ocean Counters.

5) Best bath toy for phonics - Fish n Spell

To help your child improve their phonics in a fun way while they are in the bath, the Fish n Spell letters bath toy is a real catch! A huge set of 103 colourful lowercase letters that are great for practising spelling and phonics - plus lots of other fun word games. It comes with four 'fishing rods' so you can fish letters out of the bath and they stick to the 'bait'. Children find it hilarious fishing out letters and can then easily stick them to the side of the tub or tiles. 

Left to their own devices, older children love making words and phrases around the bath and this bath toy is perfect for practising for weekly spelling tests in a fun way.

Click here to see Fish n Spell.

 So that's our top 5 bath toys for older children to encourage learning through open-ended play. Be sure to click the links to visit any of the toys to find out more about them. We're sure you'll find one to spark the interest of your youngster.