SAND AND WATER TABLES

This is a blog for early childhood teachers looking for ways to expand and enrich play and learning in and around their sand and water tables with easy-to-make, low-cost apparatus. It may also be of interest for anyone who appreciates children's messy play.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

TRASH BIN APPARATUS

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This school this year, we got new recycling bins. That left us with a dilemma: What do we do with the plastic trash bins---two of them---we...

Sunday, October 25, 2015

SHARING REFLECTIONS

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In an earlier post this year, I said I wanted to leave each new apparatus up for two weeks instead of the usual one week. One of the reaso...

Saturday, October 17, 2015

MULTIPLE TRAYS WITH WATER II

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At the sensory table, planter trays have been a staple in my classroom for many years. However, this is the first year I set up a multiple...

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Saturday, October 10, 2015

MULTIPLE TRAYS WITH WATER

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This summer I did a couple of workshops in Madison, Wisconsin. In one of the sessions, I asked a group of participants to brainstorm ideas ...

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Sunday, October 4, 2015

PERSONAL SPACE

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This year I am trying to share with the parents more of what goes on in my classroom. I sent one group of parents a video of their children...

Saturday, September 26, 2015

EXTRAODINARY OR ORDINARY?

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Just a month ago, I wrote a piece about the Extraordinary in the Ordinary. In that post, I said one of my goals this school year was to fi...

Saturday, September 19, 2015

PIPES EMBEDDED IN TRAYS

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Two years ago, I created an apparatus I called Pipes Embedded in Planter Trays . I took two 3/4 inch PVC pipes and embedded them through t...

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About Me

Tom Bedard: Early childhood education has been my life for over 40 years. I have taught all age groups from infants to 5-year-olds. I was a director for five years in the 1980s, but I returned to the classroom 22 years ago. My passion is watching the ways children explore and discover their world. In the classroom, everything starts with the reciprocal relationships between adults and children and between the children themselves. With that in mind, I plan and set up activities. But that is just the beginning. What actually happens is a flow that includes my efforts to invite, respond and support children's interface with those activities and with others in the room. Oh yeh, and along the way, the children change the activities to suit their own inventiveness and creativity. Now the processes become reciprocal with the children doing the inviting, responding and supporting. Young children are the best learners and teachers. I am truly fortunate to be a part of their journey.

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