Thursday, October 28, 2010

Fall Water Table Idea

I absolutely love my water table and so do my children. If you don't have one you can use a shallow rubbermaid container or a dishpan works well too.

This without question is my children's favorite activity for the water table. I bought a bunch of silk leaves, I throw in some brown pom poms(nuts), add these cute little squirrels(I found them at Oriental Trading), a *tree made out of a recycled coffee can, some tongs, and programmed leaves with numbers on them.

We use it in lots of different ways:

1. COUNTING AND ADDING

They pick a card and then hunt like squirrels to find that number of nuts in the leaves picking them up with the tongs and take them back to the tree. As they have gotten older they pick two cards and add them together and find that many nuts.

2. GROUPING

They group the squirrels by the different items they hold or the leaves by shape or color.

3. IMAGINATIVE

They just love to play with the squirrels in the leaves.

4. SMALL MOTOR SKILLS

By using the tongs in #1 this is a great small motor skill activity.




*I made the tree by taking brown construction paper and made it to look like a tree. Then cut the paper to size and glue it to the can(the great thing about the can is I saved the plastic lid and so I can store all the other items in the can until I need it again).

2 Halloween Games in 1




Need to Make Cans:
recycled cans(I have the can opener that doesn't leave sharp edges-I highly recommend getting one)
Different patterns of orange scrapbook paper
Halloween stickers
Glue

How to Make Cans:
Cut paper to fit can
Glue paper to can using glue stick
Add Stickers

Game One:
Stack cans as shown above and throw bean bags at them to knock them down or you can roll a pumpkin at them.

Game Two:
Cluster cans together and try to throw black and orange pom poms in them or black and white beans.

Halloween Game and Craft

To Make:
First cut a 12x12 piece of scrap book paper in four making 6x6 pieces of paper and add a pumpkin die cut to the center with a glue dot(see picture below). Then you program a six sided die with the words or pictures of nose, right eye, left eye, mouth, sticker, and sticker.

Needed to Play:
game card you made from above
die you made
black markers or crayons
Halloween stickers

The Rules:
You pass the die around and roll and you add the item rolled with a black marker or add stickers if you roll the word sticker. First one done converting their pumpkin into a jack o lantern wins.





What I love about this game is it is a craft too!