Water Table Alphabet Soup!

The water table is an amazing space in a preschool classroom.  Once everyone has learned not to pour the water on the floor.  Or drink the water.  Or splash their friends in the face.  But yes, once that has all been figured out it is a wonderful place to play and learn!  Many skills are enhanced as children play here.  Depending on the materials and tools you add to the table, the possibilities are pretty much endless...

I've found over the years that most children are interested in pretending to cook and eat.  The Dramatic Play area of my room was fully stocked with play dishes, toy food, and empty food containers.  But carrying that theme into the water table is a super fun variation!

The addition of alphabet letters adds a touch of early literacy to this activity.  Letter naming and recognition for one!  The kids might be interested in finding the letters in their name--if they're ready and interested, challenge them to find the first letter of the name of each family member!  Math can happen, too, as you count letters with them, ask them to find all the red or blue letters, categorize by curved or straight line letters...

To create an Alphabet Soup water table, all you need are the following:

Plastic alphabet letters
Bowls
Spoons
Mini ladles if you can find them!
Empty spice containers
Cheap white shoelaces, cut into 10" or smaller pieces

Fill your table with water, sprinkle in ingredients, and watch the creative play in front of your very eyes!

Want more fun tidbits for teachers, parents, or anyone that loves small kids?

What's your favorite thing to put in the water table?  Have you tried this recipe?  Post in the comments below!

Alphabet Sensory Tray

Here's an idea I used to do in the classroom when I was a preschool teacher. 

Maybe it will work for you too!

Although I always had a regular sensory table in my classroom, with the older kids (3 and up) I liked to have sensory trays on a table as well. These were set up for individual play. I put two trays on the table across from each other, with a beach towel underneath to catch spills. Here's an example. The filler is dyed tiny alphabet pasta, and we put lots of little containers, spoons, etc in for the kids to explore. Love the touch of early literacy with the ABC pasta--the kids loved hunting for the letters in their names...

We usually colored the pasta as a small group activity but you could skip the kids' participation and just do it all yourself :) We gave each child a small zip lock bag and had them use a small scoop to put some of the pasta in the bag. Then we used liquid watercolor from Discount School Supply--the kids chose which color they wanted to use. The teacher squirts a little into the bag and seals it, and then the kids shake, shake, shake. Add more color if needed. Shake some more. Dump all the bags out onto a tray and shake it so it's spread out a bit. Let dry. I'm not really sure how long it takes to dry--we always did this before snack time and often wouldn't get back to it till around 1 or 2. By that time it was totally dry. I imagine it probably takes about half an hour to be usable. Easy peasy mac and cheesey :) This lasts for years, by the way.