I will be presenting at the 2024 NAEYC conference in Anaheim, November 6 - 9th.  I will be talking about creating unlimited possibilities for play and learning at the sensory table. I will highlight multiple cheap and easy-to-build constructions made from recycled materials to create unique spaces that nourish children's innate ability to make meaning through complex inquiry and problem solving. One of my objectives is to have the children tell the story of their own creativity as they inhabit those spaces.

To set the stage for the presentation, I will talk a little bit about my values as an early childhood educator. That is important because my values should be reflected in my practice. Below are a couple of my values and what they mean for my practice

1) I value each child for who they are both as an individual and as part of a group. That means I greet each child everyday in a way that communicates that I see you and your are welcome in this place. At the same time, that gives me the opportunity to take a measure of their state of being and react accordingly. If I value each child, I look for their strengths and try to find ways to validate them so they feel good about themselves. That also means I encourage them to use of their strengths to find their unique place in the classroom as we build community of mutual respect.

I like the quote by David Hawkins from his book The Informed Vision that describes the uniqueness of each child. "The product number of possible congenital patterns multiplied by possible biographies of children is of higher arithmetic order than the number of children past, present, or future. The possibility is effectively zero that there should be two children presenting the same educational challenges and opportunities"(p. 25). I think that means children are not the same and should not be treated as such.

2) I value children's capacity for learning. Children come into the classroom with the tools to make meaningful choices to follow their own interests in all domains: physical, social/emotional and cognitive. That means I set up the room with open ended materials so that the children can explore, experiment and make meaning of their immediate world. 

Again, let me quote David Hawkins. " Children are allowed to construct, test, probe and experiment without superimposed questions or instructions"(p. 68). Why? Because the children are capable of being authors of their own learning.

3) I value children's physical intelligence.  I believe that children think with their bodies; they are always moving so they are always thinking. That means I create the conditions for the children to interact with the their world with their bodies. That includes having the opportunity to work with fine motor, gross motor and whole body operations.

This is just a taste of my values and what it means for my practice,  Hopefully, I can get you to think about your values and what that means for your practice. 

If you are so inclined to take in my session, please come up and say hello. 

*Hawkins, D. The Informed Vision: Essays on Learning and Human Nature. New York: Algora Publishing, 2002.

 

 

 

Oobleck

Because I am often asked what materials I use in my sand and water table, I am writing a series of posts about those materials.  I started to introduce some of those materials in posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.  I also wrote about a couple of the most elemental materials I use in the table, namely, water and sand.  (By the way, water comes in different states and there are several different types of sand.)  In February, I wrote a post on feed corn.  In April, I wrote about wood pellets.  In May, I wrote about water beads.

In this post, I would like to write about oobleck in the sensory table.  Oobleck is a mixture of cornstarch and water. When mixed together, the solution of cornstarch and water has unique properties.  If you squeeze it, it is like a solid.  If you let it go, it melts or flows like a liquid.  In scientific terminology it is called a non-Newtonian fluid that changes from a liquid to a solid state when stress is applied.  In other words, it has properties of both a solid and a liquid.  (3M has made a lot of money off a substance with such properties with their post-it notes and removable hooks.)  I have no recipe for the ratio of cornstarch to water; I mix until I get the consistency I want.  If there is too little water, the mixture is too hard.  If there is too much water, it is too runny. 

The first time I used oobleck in the sensory table, I set it up with a knob ramp.  It was basically a wooden ramp set on an incline.  Small dowels were arranged in a cascading fashion. 

The beauty of this apparatus was that children could see the dispersal pattern as the oobleck cascaded down the ramp.  Because the oobleck mixture was a certain viscosity (the state of being thick, sticky and semifluid.) the oobleck oozed down the ramp.

In fact, for some children it was hot lava.  The two children in the video clip below filled their bowls with hot lava and then created a genuine "lava flow."

Pouring and Catching the Hot Lava from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

In the video clip below, the child discovers that when the oobleck is squeezed or pinched, it feels solid to the point that she says:"It feels like a ball is in there, a snowman."

 

The second time I put oobleck in the sensory table. I paired it with a platform I created out of pvc pipes and a sheet of black plastic.

The platform allowed the children to explore the oobleck without getting the gooey stuff all over their hands.  The children pictured below talked about making pancakes on the griddle.

Although, if a child wanted to feel what it was like to totally immerse their hand in the oobleck, the platform was perfect for holding the measuring cup stable .

Not only did this child feel what it was like to bury their hand in the oobleck, they also conducted a science experiment about displacement.  The child started with a full cup of oobleck. As they immersed their hand, the oobleck oozed over the side of the measuring cup.  When the child pulled their hand out of the measuring cup, it was no longer full.

One of the biggest surprises for the children---and me---was what happened underneath the platform as the oobleck oozed through the holes that were drilled in the platform.  The oobleck took the form of slow raindrops with a tail. 

Was it messy?  Of course it was messy, but oh so much fun and full of rich possibilities for working with a non-Newtonian fluid.  Besides, it was easier to clean up than one might imagine.  The children could just dip their their hands in a bucket of water and the oobleck would rinse right off.  And bathing the apparatus and the table with water allowed me to just dump out the diluted solution.

One of the nice things that happened handling the oobleck was that the cornstarch in the oobleck softened our hands.

If you are interested in reading about how the children explored the oobleck and the setups, the following three links reference my original blog posts:

here                                                                                                                                

here                                               

here 

 

Water beads

Because I am often asked what materials I use in my sand and water table, I am writing a series of posts about those materials.  I started to introduce some of those materials in posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.  I also wrote about a couple of the most elemental materials I use in the table, namely, water and sand.  (By the way, water comes in different states and there are several different types of sand.)  In February, I wrote a post on feed corn.  In April, I wrote about wood pellets.

In this post, I want to talk about water beads.  Water beads are super absorbent polymers that expand from a tiny dot to a marble size ball when immersed in water.  Florists use them to keep the soil moist and they are  sometimes marketed as sensory material for children with developmental delays.  I have even seen them advertised in a science surplus store.  I bought my water beads at a local craft store. When hydrated, the water beads squish, bounce, and roll.  

Before I show you some of the play that emerges as the children play with them, and even though they are non-toxic, I want you to understand that they can be dangerous.  To see what I mean, watch the following You Tube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti6C8wg5VE4

The setup for the water beads is two sensory tables, each with a plywood insert with big holes.  The holes in the smaller table are the same size whereas the holes in the larger table are different sizes.  The two tables are connected with PVC half pipes.  The smaller pipe is taped to a yellow bin so the water beads flow from the big sensory table to the small sensory table.  The bigger PVC pipe is slanted in the opposite direction because the lip of the small sensory table is slightly higher than the lip of the larger table.

This setup allows the children to "fish" for water beads through the holes with minnow nets.  The plywood inserts provide a platform in between the holes to hold the children's collection of water beads.

Once a child collects enough beads, the feel of the water beads is irresistible.  They are kind of slimy without the stickiness of slime.  

Something happens to the color of the water beads when they are in the water.  The clear ones disappear.  The colored ones offer a different shade of their original color, but only in the blue sensory table.

                                       

 

I have so many images of children creating novel operations at the sensory table with this setup for the water beads, but let me show just one.  The child below is dropping the water beads one by one done the PVC pipe and then catching them with the minnow net.

That is not as simple as it sounds because the child has to use their proprioceptive sense to hold the minnow net in place while they drop a water bead down the pipe.  In addition, they are using their fine motor skills to pick up the individual---slippery---beads.

Below is a second setup for water bead play.  A PVC pipe frame holds multiple pipes with inclines across the two tables.

The highlight of this apparatus is the clear plastic tube oriented on a slight slant.  It connects children in play in so many spontaneous ways.  One simple way has the child on the top fill the pot for the child on the bottom.

Again, I have so many images of children discovering novel operations, but let me highlight just one.  The children use a plastic juice can to plug the tube.  When the tube is full and the plug is pulled, the flood of water beads is a joy to behold.

Water bead water fall from Thomas Bedard on Vimeo.

If you want to see more on the apparatus and the children's operations that emerged from them, you can find the original posts here and here.

Even though I was surprised and amazed with the children's play and experimentation with the water beads, I only used them for a couple of weeks one year.  Why?  I cannot say.

A word of caution about water beads.  If you read the label it says to keep out of the reach of young children.   You will have to think what that means for you.  For me it meant knowing the children in my classroom and knowing when to supervise more closely.   And if you have not watched the You Tube video about the danger of water beads mentioned near the beginning of this post, please do so you can make an informed decision.  By the way, the label also says that they will plug up plumbing so do not pour them down the drain.  

Wood Pellets

Because I am often asked what materials I use in my sand and water table, I am writing a series of posts about those materials.  I started to introduce some of those materials in posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.  I also wrote about a couple of the most elemental materials I use in the table, namely, water and sand.  (By the way, water comes in different states and there are several different types of sand.)  In February, I wrote a post on feed corn.

In this post, I write about wood pellets.  Wood pellets are made of compressed saw dust and are burned in pellet stoves to heat a house.  They are also used for grilling.  There are softwood pellets and hardwood pellets.  I generally used pellets made from pine saw dust.

Before I write about the pellets, there is a story behind how I discovered them.  One year I had a child in my classroom who had so many allergies to food that the parent was introducing one food at a time to see if the child could tolerate it.  I had been using feed corn because I really liked its unique properties for children's play and exploration.  Even though feed corn is ostensibly for animals, it was close enough to food that I removed it as a medium from my sensory table.  Thus began a quest to find a medium with similar properties.  I found what I was looking for in a big box hardware store in the form of wood pellets.

So what are some of the unique properties of wood pellets as a medium that are similar to feed corn?  First, the wood pellets come in small, light bits much like feed corn.  Those properties invite children to collect the wood pellets and corn kernels to fill their containers 

My point is well made with two pictures from my archives.  In the picture above a child fills multiple containers with pellets.  In the picture below, two children fill whatever container they find with a mix of pellets and feed corn.  

Like the kernels in feed corn, pellets require the children to use their pincer grip to handle the individual pieces. 

The child above has found a hole in a small stand next to the sensory table.  Using her developing small motor skills, she proceeds to drop individual pellets into the hole. 

Another similarity with feed corn is how the wood pellets flow down an incline tube. Water and sand flow in a continuous stream, but with the pellets there is a discernible dispersion pattern as they drop out of the tube.

This is a setup in which a big box is partially embedded in the sensory table.  Children at the top of the tube pour pellets down and the child in the box plugs the lower end with a small plastic pail. When the tube is full, the child in the box pulls the plug and the pellets come gushing out.

Much like the feed corn, the pellets seem to invite and even encourage children to totally immerse their hands and arms as they explore the medium.

In one cubicle, the child in orange has buried his hands and arms in the mass of wood pellets.  He is helped by the child in the stripes who gathers more pellets from another cubicle to add to the mass of pellets and further bury the other child's hands and arms.  The middle cubicle is already empty so you know this is a joint endeavor that is taking time and persistence.

Yet another property that wood pellets have in common with the feed corn is the popping sound they make when they are poured into a tub

 

 

This child carefully pours pellets into the tub next to the sensory table.   The sound of the pellets popping as they hit the bottom of the tub is an integral part of her endeavor.

There are at least two properties that differentiate wood pellets from feed corn.  One is the smell.  Wood pellets smell like wood and feed corn smells like, well, corn.  This is the sensory table and smell is part of the experience.

Another difference between the wood pellets and the feed corn is the shape.  The feed corn has flat sides; the wood pellets are little round cylinders.

 

Because the pellets are round they roll and can make quite a mess. However, said mess is a great opportunity for children---given the right tools---to help take care of the room with real work.

When that family left the program, I brought back the feed corn.  However, I do owe a debt of gratitude to the mom and child who set me on my quest to find a substitute for feed corn.  And because of that, I gained a new medium with unique properties that I could rotate from time to time into the sensory table.

Corn

Because I am often asked what materials I use in my sand and water table, I am writing a series of posts about those materials.  I started to introduce some of those materials in posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.  Last October, I wrote about one of the most elemental materials I use in the table, namely, water.  And last month, I wrote about another elemental material, namely, sand.

In this post, I write about corn, specifically feed corn.  Many years ago, I found myself in the feed section of a big hardware store.  I eyed a 50lb bag of feed corn and decided to try it in the sensory table.

Children are experts at exploring the materials in the sensory table.  Below, the child's exploration adds a little bit of knowledge about what is corn: how does it smell; how does it feel as she immerses her arms in the corn.

 

The corn in the sensory table is made up of many individual kernels.  Leave it to a child to find a hole in which to drop individual kernels.

 

Not only is this child exploring if the individual kernels fit in the small hole, he is also honing his fine motor skills by using a pincer grip to handle the individual kernels.

 

Below, the children experience how the corn exits the cardboard chute.  The child trying to catch the corn with the pink cup begins to understand that the corn does not exit the chute in a stream much like water or sand, but disperses helter-skelter.

 

It makes it a little harder to fill his cup, but or so much more fun.  And speaking of fun, how great it must feel to enjoy a "corn rain."

 

 

In their operations, the children are able to make a lot of good noise.  In the short video below, the children are creating a total aural experience as they all dump the corn down the big wardrobe box incline

 

 

Sometimes, I like to add actual corn cobs to the corn in the sensory table.  It may be hard to see, but below the child is using the handle of a small measuring cup to dislodge individual kernels of the corn.

 

Not only is she honing her fine motor skills, she problem solves to create a tool to help her extract the kernels from the cob.

Last year I wrote about strategies I used to make changes in the sensory table.  One strategy was to change the material in the table.  Below the children are using a dump truck to deposit a material into a hole.  The child on the left is dumping sand and the child on the right is dumping corn. 

 

Even though the children are doing the same exact operation, they are learning about the properties of each material.  That includes things like the difference in sound, weight and smell.  It is not that the children set out to find the differences.  Rather, their actions with the different materials add to an embedded knowledge about those differences.  

 Up next: wood pellets.

 

 

 

 

 

Sand

Because I am often asked what materials I use in my sand and water table, I am writing a series of posts about those materials.  I started to introduce some of those materials in my recent posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.  Last October, I wrote about one of the most elemental materials I use in the table, namely, water.

In this post, I will write about another elemental material, namely, sand.  Like water, sand can take different forms. 

First of all, there is generic play sand.  I always get my sand from a big box hardware store in bags that is labeled "play sand."

 

Never underestimate the power of plain old sand to foster all types of play from scooping, pouring, filling and dumping.  The one aspect of generic sand that I do not appreciate is that it tends to be dusty, especially when children pour it even from a small height.  To counteract the dust, I use a spray bottle to slightly spray the sand with water.  When I change the material in the table, I always make sure the sand is completely dry when I store it in a bucket because wet sand gets musty.

I appreciate different kinds of sands so I was excited one when one year I found a white play sand.  The beauty of this sand is that it is dustless so I do not have to spray it with water.  An added plus with this sand is that it was very fine and soft.

 

Children in the picture above are pouring sand over a pegboard platform.   Even though the sand is dropping a couple of levels, there is no dust.

 

Another feature that enhances the children's play with the sand is that it is so white.  In the picture below, one child pretends it is snow and explains to the other child how a blizzard buried all the vehicles.  (You have to understand that I write this blog from Minnesota where we can have snow on the ground for up to six months.)

One year, I found a beige sand that has many of the same properties as the white sand.  It is very fine, dustless and quite soft to the touch.

There are other fine sands at hardware stores that are often used for sandblasting, but avoid them because they have what are called free silicates.  Free silicates are bad for the lungs.  In fact, avoid any sand that contains them.

Another type of sand that is in my inventory is Moon Sand.  Moon Sand is not a sand that is pourable. Instead it is moldable, which is great for making things like cakes. 

 

Notice that the two trays make it possible to display the cakes above the bottom of the sensory table.

 

Since Moon Sand sticks together and can form a solid shape or block, the children can use real tools to cut it.  Below, four children have filled the wooden tray completely with Moon Sand and are all using different size putty knives to cut and jab the block of Moon Sand.  Serious work requires serious tools.

I know there are recipes for making your own Moon Sand.  I have never tried to make it.  I always ordered a commercial version.  By the way, there are other kinds of specialty sand such as kinetic or slimy sand, but I never tried them.  They do look interesting.

 

I saved my favorite sand until last.  It is called Jurassic Sand.   It's color is striking while being dust free, dye free, chemical free and millions of years old to boot.  It is also expensive; I always joke with the parents that it is so expensive because it is "antique" sand. 

Over the years, I have kept adding to my stash of Jurassic Sand until I now have enough for two tables which is over two hundred dollars worth, but worth every penny.

Since it is Jurassic Sand, I often times I like to include little dinosaurs to enrich the children's play.

When people asked me if I ever mix sand and water my answer has always been: no!  That was true until the spring of 2016 right before I retired from the classroom.   The reason why I changed my mind was because of another feature of Jurassic Sand: it is washable.  If you want to read more about why and what happened when I mixed water with Jurassic Sand, you can find the answers in the following post entitled I dare you.

If you have been following this thread about what I put in the sensory table you may be getting the idea that I like materials from nature.  You would not be mistaken.  So what is up next?  Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensory materials for the sand and water table.

Because I am often asked what materials I used in my sand and water table, I will write a series of posts about those materials.  In a way, I have already started to introduce some of those materials in my most recent posts about two of my favorite materials: sticks and rocks.

Let me backtrack with a post about one of the most elemental materials for the sensory table, namely water.  However, when I think of water, I think about how varied that material can be.

First of all, there is just plain old water that one gets from the faucet.  It was never enough for me to just have water and cups and bottles for pouring and filling.  I always felt that children would tire of that setup rather quickly.  Instead, I would add a construction to the sensory table to invite children to explore the properties of water.  For instance, one of the most dynamic apparatus was a large PVC pipe with funnels that was oriented on a slant so when the children poured water into a funnel, the water would exit the end of the pipe into a tub next to the table.

That may sound simple, but there were some serious physics going on there.  Namely, the lateral force of water poured into the pipe through the funnel carried buoyant objects out the pipe.  Of course, the children did not have words for their physics experiments, but never the less, they were gaining important knowledge about the properties of water.  Back in 2011, I wrote a post about more ways children discovered some of the properties of water, specifically water pressure and hydraulics. 

To offer the children a little different experience with water, I sometimes used liquid water color to color the water.  This was especially useful for the children to tract the flow of water though clear plastic tubing.

I wrote a post back in 2015 about the different tracking strategies the children used to track the the water through the tubes here. And wouldn't you know it, there was even a little bit about hydraulics again.

To offer children yet a different experience with water, I often added a little dish soap to the water.  That made it possible for the children to create suds.  Below, when the child poured water into the tray, the water dropping through the holes in the tray agitated the soap and water to produce suds.

Suds was a fantastic material.  One of the properties that the children discovered was that suds adhered to a lot things, like the hands and face.

Suds mixed with paint offered a unique experience for the children to mix colors, paint objects---including themselves---and generally make a beautiful mess.  

I live in Minnesota.  That means water often took on a different state in the winter, namely snow.  A few times each winter I would bring the snow into the sensory table for the children to explore. Because the snow was inside, the children could experience the snow without heavy coats and mittens.  Instead, they got up close and personal by handling the snow with their bare hands.  

Snow was also a great medium on which to paint because it offered the children a bright white canvas.  (Notice how the simple tray spanning the width of the table held the children's painted snow creations above the table of snow and even showcased those very creations.)

There was one more state of water that the children got to experience at my sensory table, namely ice.  Again, this was usually a material that I set out in the winter.  The usual invitation to explore the ice took the form of freezing things in ice and offering tools to the children to extract those things frozen in ice.

Water in the water table was so much more for me than cups for pouring and filling bottles and and other containers.  It was observing the children experiencing the different states of water with many different setups.  Those setups exponentially increased children's exploration of water and its properties.

This post has only scratched the surface of the rich possibilities for children experimenting with water in different states and with different setups. 

Next up: sand.