fwatertable

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ON-GOING WATER TABLE ACTIVITY: Dirt Share your ideas too. E-mail me at stormie@preschoolbystormie.com

From Stormie:
1. Place dry dirt in your water table for play.
2. On another day, with supervision and lots of smocks, let children turn that dirt into mud.
3. In celebration of the letter Pp:
a. One of the many things children can do with dirt is to add small amounts of water to it then try painting with it.
b. Ask children if they can make puddles in the dirt/mud?
4. Place two large rubbermaid containers into your water table (one holding dirt, the other holding mud). Let children compare the differences. For example, let them drive tiny toy cars through dirt and through mud. What differences do you feel, see, and smell? What happens when mud dries? How does it feel, look, and smell when it's dry? Can you spread dirt with a plastic knife? Can you spread mud with your hands? Which sprinkles better, dirt or mud?

Another Suggestion for the Month:
"Letter P" ideas for your Sand/Water Table:

From Suzanne K in New Jersey:
Place puppy food and puffed rice in your table. Another option: ping pong balls and toilet tubes. Suzanne says, "Children tape the toilet tubes together (they love tape), make very long tunnels, and go for it. I let them also try to bounce the balls or roll them on the floor. Or, children can sit across from each other on the floor (or kneel at a table) then blow air into straws to make the balls move."

From Leanne Grillot, teacher for the visually impaired:
Put various sizes of craft pom-poms or unpopped popcorn in your water table.

From Jennifer Williams, teacher of special needs preschoolers:
Pool of Fun: Instead of a water table, we use a small hard plastic kid's pool. We fill it with many different things throughout the year. Our pool rules are: Only two children in it at a time, no sitting on the sides, and shoes come off before getting in. During our "Animals" unit, we fill the pool with stuffed animals. The children hide under the animals, bury each other in them, sort the animals, and we use them for role playing (acting out scenes from stories, for example). The children LOVE it! It's like playing in a regular pool, but with a medium other than water. For safety, you may want to set the pool on a gym mat. We have also padded the walls where the pool is located.
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