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, March 26, 2016

Don't do this

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I have been thinking a lot about the children's need to transport (see Axiom #1 on the right hand column of this blog). It began in...

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Saturday, March 19, 2016

Transporting paradise

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Back in January of this year, I wrote a post called transporting . I ended the post this way: I am now wondering what would happen if I el...

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Saturday, March 12, 2016

Baby washing 2016

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One of the posts that has gotten the most hits in the five plus years of blogging is the baby washing post. There is really nothing partic...

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Born scientists

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I have been reading the book by Alison Gopnik called The Philosophical Baby. On page 91, she states that children have an innate drive to e...

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Saturday, February 27, 2016

Tubes and cardboard dividers

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Last week I wrote about cardboard dividers and a new type of play that emerged from the setup. I left the cardboard divider up a...

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Cardboard dividers

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The cardboard divider apparatus is one of the first apparatuses I built in my classroom 26 years ago. Back then, I had a very small table a...

Saturday, February 13, 2016

SOCIAL SKILLS

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Once or twice a year, I put out Moon Sand. When I put out Moon Sand, I like to set up a large wooden tray on which the children can work. ...

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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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