With our moving day later this week I really should have spent the weekend packing. And I did … some of it anyway. But we were given a water table recently and the kids have been enjoying it very much, so when I stumbled upon some stamps during my packing I knew just what we needed to do. And it certainly wasn’t (perhaps responsibly) pack them away!
We use our water table for far more then just water. We like to call it a sensory table – it holds sand, water, dough, flour, rice, or just about anything! I have quite a few preschool sensory table ideas from teaching kindergarten. I was always sure to have a sensory table filled and ready for little explorers each and every day. If you happen to be looking for preschool sensory table ideas you are in luck! This one is super simple, full of learning, and so much fun!
For this sensory table activity I filled the table with water. Our sensory table happens to be split in two. One half was filled with leaves from some ‘soufflé’ that was being cooked. My Sam always makes soufflé when pretending to cook which I find so cute – he has never eaten or even seen soufflé as far as I know. But regardless, I could not possibly disturb his soufflé as it cooked, so I used the other side of the sensory table to fill with water. Sam said his soufflé was actually in need of some stamps (who could have guessed?) So he eagerly added them to his leaves. I fully believe in giving children unstructured play time – and oodles of it! Please know when you see an activity such as this one it is left open ended in our home, and often offered for a little inspiration when my little ones look like they could use it.
We added the stamps to the water …. and since a certain Kindergarten teacher had not properly cleaned said stamps before putting them away the water was changed to a lovely pink hue. I did a quick check to make sure the dye was diluted enough that it wouldn’t leave a coloured stamp before letting my little ones get to it. Once the stamp dried completely without leaving a pink trace my kids eagerly got to stamping.
They would dunk their stamps into the water and run to the deck or fence to stamp it. It actually helped to have the water table a little bit away from the stamping spot. As my kids ran to stamp the extra water dripped off a bit letting the stamp leave it’s mark more clearly. We used alphabet stamps because they were the ones I stumbled upon while packing, but any stamps would work well. Animal or people stamps would be lovely for story telling and shape stamps would be ideal for building pictures.
After a little while my little ones asked for some paintbrushes so they could paint with water. Unfortunately almost all of our craft supplies are packed away – but we did have some Qtips handy! They worked like a charm!
My Sam (4) loved racing to see how many letters he could stamp before they evaporated, and my Ben (21 months) was completely baffled by the fact that his stamps would disappear. Sam attempted to explain the evaporation process to his brother … which was beyond adorable, and apparently he has been horribly misinformed. But for now, it was lovely, and in time it will become a bit more scientific. No rush. We are going to keep the magic of childhood alive and well for a good long while.
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