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Contact_FullName: Heidi Contact_Email: hroggenbuck@yahoo.com date:: 1/20/02 Area: Sensory Idea: When coloring rice or noodles for the sensory table, use Liquid Watercolor from Discount School Supply. It's relatively inexpensive, goes a long way, makes BRIGHT colors and dries easily. Simply put the rice or noodles into a Ziploc bag. Add desired amount of liquid water color, squish around in bag until color is evenly distributed. Lay out to dry if necessary. This has worked much better for coloring rice and noodles for me! Also works well for coloring play-doh!
3-12-01Fill your table with water and antibacterial soap. Add sponges, dishes from housekeeping, and lots of towels. My students had lots of fun practicing washing and drying dishes.
2-20-01Rainbow Rice - I purchase regular dry white rice in bulk. Divide it up into Ziploc bags. Add a different color food coloring to each baggie. Zip shut very tightly and knead the bag to distribute the color throughout the rice. Add more coloring if needed. I use good quality food coloring (like Wilton) in a variety of colors - you can go "pastel" or "bright"! Then lay the rice out on a cookie tray or something like that to let it dry. Put the Rainbow Rice in the water/sand table with a variety of tools - buckets, spoons, small cars, etc. If you don't have a sand table, just put the rice in a large flat storage box, place on a big blanket for easy cleanup and let the kids have fun. My children love this activity!
2-20-01We have labeled our sensory table "The mystery table". We change out materials on a regular basis. Some ideas include: rice; fall leaves and soil with block play woodland animals (autumn); rice and black beans (Halloween), corn feed with a large and a small rock for crushing corn (Thanksgiving); oiled brown paper bag in water with basters (Thanksgiving); wrapping paper, small boxes, ribbon and tape (Christmas/Hanukah); Large block of ice floating in water ("iceberg"-winter), shaving cream, soil with child sized gardening tools or rubber snakes, insects, etc; ice with rock salt and jars of liquid water color and eyedroppers. Possibilities are endless!
1-15-01We've tried several different items in our sensory table (which we call the "discovery table"). One of the best is straws of all different shapes and sizes. At first, the kids like to simply scoop and pour them. Then we started hiding things in them. Then we started stringing them together. Finally, we cut them using scissors (tied to the table's legs so they wouldn't get buried). My kids have been known to use these straws for nearly a month without ever becoming tired! Another great item is bean-bag filler (the little Styrofoam balls you put inside beanbag chairs). We've used this like snow, and recently threw in some metal-lined transparent chips that come with magnetic kits. We then used magnetic wands and poles to go "ice-fishing". The kids loved it--they really had to be quiet and listen for the "fish" to "bite" (the chips make a small noise when it is attracted to the magnet and the filler is a quiet "white noise"). Usually you can find huge bags of the filler at Wal-Mart or Meijer for about $10--and you only need half a bag!
12-27-00At Christmas, put a small artificial Christmas tree, garland, plastic ornaments, etc. into your sand/water table. The children have fun decorating and redecorating the Christmas tree.
11-7-00Put fall leaves in your sensory table, and then put plastic bugs, snakes, spiders, and/or the rubbery fishing lures (no hooks, of course). There are worms, lizards, crawfish, and minnow shapes. The children love to dig in the leaves for these items.
11-5-00My preschool uses a lot of different ideas, we use pom-pom and use tongs to separate colors and sizes. We use package peanuts and hide things to find, things hidden have to do with the theme were working on. We also use Easter grass. Plastic Eggs to match. Rice, Beans, coffee grinds, macaroni, dirt, scrap paper to cut or tear, oats, corn, and shaving cream with food coloring to teach color concepts or science of mixing colors. Good luck, Its so much fun to make changes, the children look forward to it.
10-16-00While doing exploration of the different types of corn, I placed feeder corn in the water table. I "shucked" some of the corn and also placed some "unshucked" ears into the water table. The kids loved "shucking", scooping, and measuring the corn and it was a fun and different type of sensory activity in the water table.
10-7-00We just completed our fall unit and we put wheat in the sand table. We put farm animals and the tractors, etc. in with them. The children loved it and it was easier to clean up than sand. We bought a 40 pound bag at our local farm store for $6.
10-6-00For a new spin on regular water table play try lining the bottom of your water table with aluminum foil! It adds a cool shimmer to the water and the kids love it! You can add rocks, beads (Christmas tree garland type) and other various items. Be creative! Have fun!
9-17-00Everyone has plastic counting bears, they float in your water table! To add math, fine motor and science, I have large plastic tweezers (the kind that come in the Bed Bugs Game) and cups. The children pick up the bears with the tweezers and put them in the cups. The children use all kinds of number words, counting, and are really strengthening their little hands for writing.
9-4-00In the sensory table mix shaving cream and a bag of ice.
9-1-00In the spring, we purchase a roll of sod and lay it out in the sensory table. Add spray bottles with water so the children can "water the indoor lawn" and scissors to cut the grass. Animals and People are a great addition also. The children love to care for the grass, watch it grow, trim it and the feel is great.
8-15-00Freeze large empty containers full of colored and clear water. When frozen, put them in the sensory table with a few small containers of colored rock salt (1/4 c. rock salt mixed with Liquid water color--Discount school supply has it--microwave for 1-2 minutes). Let them discover (without you telling them what to do or what will happen!) what happens with the two ingredients! Also, colored rice can be made much more easily with the liquid water color, too. It requires virtually no drying time, and is non toxic and non-staining. Other sensory tub ideas: shaving cream, real clay with cups of water, cornmeal with all sorts of recycled stuff--plastic food containers, etc., birdseed, black and white beans mixed, Styrofoam with water--the possibilities are endless:-)
7-18-00We filled our sensory table with packing peanuts. The kind that are made of cornstarch. We add pails, shovels, and measuring scoops. When the novelty of this has worn off we add a small amount of water to these, the peanuts become sticky and the children can mold them into many shapes! Much fun for everyone!
7-16-00Go to a nursery and ask them for polymer crystals. take about a cup full and put them in the bottom of the water table, add water. Let it sit for a while (sometimes over night is good). They turn into a neat feeling Jell-O form. Add water colors After it is ready for different colors. The children love the feel. Add animals etc.
7-13-00Put all of your unwanted scrap construction paper in the sensory table with a couple pairs of children's scissors. They will tear, snip and cut at their developmental level.
7-13-00Get ears of shell corn from a local farmer or feed store. Let each child shuck and shell an ear of grain corn. It's great fine motor and lots of fun. After each child shells an ear of corn into the sensory table, there's enough to play in. The empty cobs can be used for art projects. (In the fall grain corn is very hard and dry, not soft like sweet corn.)
7-9-00I put old magazine pages inside and tie scissors to each corner. The kids get to practice their fine motor skills and love it. It works best with 2-3yrs, but even the 4's and 5's like it.
7-9-00In our sensory table we added unflavored Gelatin and the children injected food coloring into the Gelatin. ( We use medicine droppers). The children enjoyed see the colors penetrating the gelatin.
6-12-00Some ideas we have used & enjoyed include: colored pop corn seeds, split peas, cheerios, frozen peas & carrots ( on a hot afternoon), poker chips, & potato flakes. I save large clear container such as mouthwash containers so the kids can fill and then screw and unscrew the large lids. The black microwave meal trays are also the perfect size and color to fill and observe in.
6-4-00When doing various units with the sensory table we just use the regular things like sand, rice, corn etc... But then we put in various items like Zoo we put Zoo animals in along with the rice. For colors like blue we put blue things in along with the sand etc...
6-4-00For our snow unit we used white cotton balls in the sensory table. The 2's&3's sometimes liked to experience the tasting of the snow or really get rough with the items in the table, so the cotton balls worked well, cotton balls were also used for our clouds.
5-31-00Rock Garden - Collect many different rocks (Thundereggs, pumice, agate, crystal, obsidian, river rock or slate). Place an inch and a half of water in the sensory tub. Place the rocks in the tub. Provide scrub brushes and dry towels. This is best done outdoors in the sun. The rocks quickly dry in the sun. My children love to see the colors come alive with the water. I use this with my dinosaur unit.
ideaWe can't use playground sand in the church our preschool is in, so we make "SuperSand" out of coffee and cornmeal.
4-15-00I bought several Rubbermaid shoe box size containers when it was suggested at a conference to use salt as an alternate to sand at the sensory table, after a few days it got old for the kids so I took three cups of sand in a Ziploc bag and added 10 drops of food coloring and mixed it around until the salt was colored. The kids love it, we now have six colors that we have used for sensory play and lots of art projects. We will eventually mix it all together for a rainbow effect, but for almost a month they have kept it separated and only one child has tried to eat it!
Date: 4-10-00
areaSensory area A great dry activity for the sensory area is shredded paper. Most businesses are willing to give it away. The children love to hide toys in it and most of all, wear it on their heads.
Date: 3-11-00Use cooked spaghetti in your water table. You can color it according to your theme for the week. I used a little rubbing alcohol along with food coloring to color the spaghetti. I then put a little bit of baby oil to keep the spaghetti from drying out. It also let the children's hands soft and smelling great! They had a blast! Don't forget the tongs, bowls, etc.
Date: 3-8-00One of the most fun things we have done this year in our sensory table is to have different colored and sized pom-poms, mini muffin tins and tongs. We thought we were providing a sorting activity and the children surprised us by 'baking' delicious muffins for us. We tool their cue and read "The Muffin Man" and did a unit in baking!
Date: 3-6-00I glue magnets onto cardboard shapes and have fishing poles made from rulers (pole), pipe cleaners (line), and another magnet glued on the end. The kids fish for whatever theme we have. Planets, stars, fish, colored shapes etc.
Date: 2-26-00In my 4-year old class we try something new in our sensory table each week. The children's favorite so far is colored rice, but when talking about animals they enjoyed: feathers, birdseed with plastic Easter eggs, peanuts (real peanuts) with zoo animal figures, various shapes of dog biscuits, hay and cedar bedding. During transportation week we used trucks and sand, packing peanuts and cotton balls to simulate clouds, and water for boats.
2-16-00Sensory Table Turn your sensory table into a "bubble factory". Fill with water. Add lots of soap {AJAX dishwashing liquid is the best} Add a variety of bubble makers: berry baskets, toilet paper tubes, bubble wands, straws, bowls, eggbeaters and some turkey basters. Encourage children to experiment with the different ways to make bubbles. Have them wear smocks and cover the floor with an old sheet. Big fun!
Date: 2-2-00Two different ideas: Fill your sensory table with 2-3 inches of warm water. Add two large blocks of ice and turkey basters. Watch the chemical change of ice melting into water! Washable watered tempura or food coloring (will stain) can be added. Another fun idea is to use aquarium nets to "fish" with. Sink and float items are great to fish for. Don't forget the ping pong balls!
Date: 1-30-00We keep various sensory motor, "touch" tables stored to use often. We purchased 16x34x4" clear-plastic "Rubbermaid" tubs with lids. Our preschoolers enjoy the "measuring table" which has flour, measuring cups, measuring spoons, sifters, etc. to practice their measuring skills. Another favorite is our "rock quarry" in which blue-chip stones have been washed and stored in the container with hand-sized dump trucks, dozers, backhoes, etc. Another favorite is the "pasta table" in which just about any size, shape and color of pasta has been placed inside for the children to explore.
Date: 1-27-00In our sensory table at preschool, we have included buttons (there is so much to learn from them ... especially from the seconds!) We also have included small gourds for Halloween and colored cotton balls. In the Spring, we put coffee grounds in our sensory table and we give each child some plastic plants to "plant in the soil." They have a blast!
Date: 1-24-00The children have been interested in snow lately. I put cotton balls and glitter snow in the sensory table, along with shovels, cups and various other items. They have been in there for three weeks now. The children love it!
Date: 12-21-00Dry beans of many colors are great, with an egg carton that has been numbered 1-12 in each egg compartment. Children will be encouraged to count out beans to put in corresponding "cup", beans can be sorted by color, size, or just play in. Beans also provide an relaxing sound when a handful is dropped from a few inches above container. Add Rubbing alcohol to beans, rice, or sand and stir, the alcohol will prevent bugs, and sanitize, too! Rice can be colored with several drops of food coloring, then mixed well. |
