Sensory, tactile, elemental, a place to create a natural world – children love sand and water areas.
Plan and equip your sand and water learning area with a solidly constructed versatile table and a variety of well-made tools, but don’t stop there. Introduce other natural elements:
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Leaves
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Potting Soil
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Twigs,
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Pebbles
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Feathers
Experiment mixing natural elements with human made such as paper, wood, metal and tools.
Heuristic Play Loose Parts
Introduce a variety of colours, textures, shapes and materials. Bury, immerse, sink to provoke. Or just put it in front of the children to see how they play and learn.
LEARN MORE about Louise Kool's Heuristic Play and Loose Parts Collection
Tools and Toys
Really almost any well-made tool or toy can add to your sand and water area. But this is where investment in quality can make a big difference.
Toys
Tools
Connecting with STEM
“Because of its sensory nature, sand play is an excellent medium for exploration and discovery and provides opportunities to integrate STEM education into preschool classrooms.”
Dr. F. Joyce Gerber communityplaythings.com - Exploring Sand Play. (2017). Retrieved April 1, 2017, from http://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/2014/exploring-sand-play
With the right materials In a Sand and Water area children can engineer and experiment with natural elements. But can also discover how the relationships in nature are reflected in math expressions.
Science
Technology
Engineering
Math
Art and Expression
Bring art to sand and water and see how the elements imprint the art.
Take away the sand and the water and your hard wearing, water ready table could be a great place to discover new artistic expressions
That sand can do amazing things on your light table.
