The Sticky Bucket

I got this idea from Deborah Teachpreschool. She has done various activities with a sticky table so I decided to create one of my own. Since I knew it wouldn't be possible to keep the contact paper on the table for more than an hour, I decided to make sticky boxes. I covered two small boxes with the contact paper sticky side up. some of the children didn't understand and ripped the contact paper off so we ended up adding the sticky paper to this bucket. When I introduced this activity, I started by putting out a basket of ribbons, pipe cleaners and feathers to see what the children would do. Some decided to make letters, shapes and elaborate constructions. Two girls sat down at the table and made a boat. They told me about diving boards, motors and wheels. They used every single piece in the basket. As time went on, I added different materials to the basket like felt and yarn. On the day when I was finally able to take a picture of the sticky bucket, I had set out sponge shapes for them to try. I imagined that it would be like building with blocks accept it would be 2d because the sponges wouldn't stay stacked. However we discovered that the contact paper wasn't sticky enough for the sponges to stay in place, but we tried.



This was the last time I was able to add to the sticky bucket with this class, but later I tried it with the toddlers. I covered a small table with clear contact paper sticky side up. The toddlers noticed the texture above everything else. They kept touching it over and over and saying, "Sticky." When they started to put their pretend foods on it, they noticed that some of them actually stuck and they were able to keep things in place. I am hoping to do more texture activities like these with my future classes.

Additional links:

• From Seed to Flower at the Sticky Table

 

• Playing With Nature at the Sticky table

 

• Exploring Everything Sticky in Preschool

Halloween Texture Box

I’ve started to put a few things together for a Halloween texture box. They can sort all the objects by texture; smoothe, rough, bumpy, soft, hard etc. I’ve included a tin foil pumpkin that didn’t come out very well and excuse the pumpkin face in the picture. It’s my Halloween placemat set. I have some plastic spiders, plush pumpkin and ghost, plastic pumpkins and a glass pumpkin and ghost. If you use a glass item, I’d only recommend it for only one child at a time if you think they are ready to be that careful and taking it away after they’ve felt it. It’s definitely not something for a center. I included them mostly for the picture because I don’t have other plastic pumpkins and ghosts, but it is another texture that they could feel and you could talk about how you have to be careful with certain things.





Other things I’d like to put in the texture box include a felt pumpkin similar to this one.


I’ve thought of sand and construction paper pumpkins, real baby pumpkins, pumpkins cut from other fabrics, foam pumpkins, sponge pumpkins etc. You could use ghosts, witch hats, spiders, skeletons etc. Basically anything related to Halloween. I couldn’t find regular cutout patterns, but I think the coloring pages will work for tracing the shapes.

There are a lot of ideas you could add to this. I hope you enjoy it. All the images that aren’t mine, I found on Google Images.

Squishy Bags For Sensory Play

I’ve worked with some kids who don’t like to paint, touch anything wet or get their hands dirty so I decided to make squish bags. This way they could feel the squishy texture without getting dirty. I took the larger ziplock bags with the actual sliding zipper that seals the bag. Then in a cup, I mixed flour, water and food coloring. Three bags used about one small box of flour. I can’t remember how much water I used in each. You probably want to start with a quarter to half a cup and see how thick the mixture is. If you want it thicker, just add more flour. Mix with the amount of food coloring you want. I used blue, yellow and made pink for a third bag. After sealing the first bag, I put another bag over it in case the first bag popped. After closing both bags, I reinforced it with packing tape.

The kids enjoyed playing with the bags. Even the kids who didn’t like to touch squishy things liked them. They made hand prints, trails, wrote out letters and numbers with their fingers and made creative designs. Another good thing was that once they were done with their design, they could shake up the bag and it was like a blank drawing board. You could do this with other things like pudding, shaving cream, marshmallows or any other thing that can be squished. Another teacher did the activity with pudding and the kids enjoyed that, but one of the bags popped and it made a huge mess. Doubling the bags works well though. Only use it for a day or two because the mixture starts to smell bad on about the third day.