The Nitty Gritty: Sand Table (Part 2 of 4)

You don’t have to go to the beach to have fun with sand. A sand table is a unique piece of children’s play equipment that is designed to allow children to stand, rather than sit, as they explore and manipulate a multitude of sensory items. Children can change the physical properties of the sand by mixing water with the sand then pouring and sifting it dry. Adding water to the sand also allows children to shape and create land and water forms. They can make molds, sift the sand, and draw in the sand with sticks to make unique shapes.

Our personal favorite thing about the sand table is that this is a great way to help children bond with each other: the table is long enough for several children to stand together as they work and play. Moreover: “In the sand [table] the children have the opportunity to become giants. They can create roads and mountains and houses. In a world where they are small and vulnerable, it is comforting to have a place where they can be big and in control” (Karen Miller, The Outside Play and Learning Book).

Why do children find the outdoors boring?

Inside, we tend to have lots of manipulatives for children: things that they can move and build with and adjust and change. When we take our children outdoors, we only provide them with static gross motor equipment or other static play items. Without manipulatives, the children quickly become bored and make manipulatives out of whatever they can find in the environment, such as turning a stick into a gun. Some ideas for manipulatives would be tubes through which the children can drop balls, sticks or any other objects they find and play with. Create a tracking panel or a gravel panel that children can drop objects down. A sand table, loaded with shovels and buckets so children can build and manipulate the sand, provides hours of enjoyment. Anything that can be used outdoors that will allow children to build and move and reshape their environment will create hours of interest and reduce supervision problems.

What can be done better outdoors than indoors?

For today’s blog, I am going to focus on messy things and why it is so much better to do them outdoors. I think of a preschool art easel and how much work teachers go to indoors, taping newspaper on the walls and the floors to make sure if children splatter paint or spill things, they can easily clean up the space. Outdoors, if we are using a biodegradable paint, there is no need for this. We can simply let the paint hit the grass and biodegrade. Also, when it comes to clean up with an outdoor art easel, you just take your water hose and squirt it down. Sensory tables frequently have messy items put in them that require clean up after use. Many times the items we put in a sensory table are biodegradable, such as bird seed, cornmeal, oats, etc. Take messy sensory table activities outdoors, so when children spill things the local birds and creatures will clean up after them. This brings wildlife to your playground, which is another important asset to an outdoor classroom. If you have ideas or questions on things that can be done better outdoors, please comment or contact me.