Sensory Table Activities for Kindergarten

A sensory table is a valuable tool in the Kindergarten and Pre-Kindergarten classroom. As Angie Dorrell of Early Childhood News reports, children remember more when they engage multiple senses in a learning experience. More than just messy fun, sensory table activities help children's development in every aspect of growth.

Activities for Cognitive Development

While most sensory table activities will encourage learning in multiple areas, activities that involve science or math concepts will make a unique contribution to cognitive development. Pouring sand or water from one container to another teaches children about volume and gravity. Counting and sorting small objects such as beans, buttons or small toys offers the opportunity to practice counting and matching skills. Making a clay boat teaches children about what makes objects float.

Activities for Social and Emotional Development

As children play side by side, they must not only share the materials in the sensory table, they also learn to work cooperatively to solve a problem. Whether that problem is creating a small village out of sand and toy houses, making a rainbow out of colored ice or filling ice cube trays with marbles, children must meet the challenge of communicating ideas and strategies with one another. Through this activity, children can also learn to listen to others and understand things from another's point of view.

Activities for Creative Development

Because sensory table activities tend to be open-ended, they are ideal for developing creativity. Using materials such as finger-paint, colored pom-poms, clay, damp sand or colored water gives the children the opportunity to experiment with mixing colors, creating designs, and sculpting objects. In addition, children enjoy creating tableaus such as a dinosaur graveyard or a fairy forest. This kind of play leads to storytelling, a different sort of creative play.

Activities for Physical Development

Opportunities for fine motor and hand-eye coordination practice abounds at the sensory table. Children can use tongs, tweezers or spoons to move small objects or sand from one container to another. Using a straw, they can blow bubbles in soapy water or blow pom-poms across the table. Using a kitchen strainer or small mesh bag, they can try to catch small fish cut from craft foam. A turkey baster acts as an eyedropper large enough for untrained hands to manipulate. Squeezing materials such as clay or damp sand develop the small muscles in children's hands and help them learn to use those muscles in a controlled way.

Suggested Materials

The options for sensory table play are nearly endless. Dry materials such as flour, cornmeal, sand, uncooked rice, uncooked pasta, dried beans, rocks, Easter grass, birdseed or oatmeal are fun. Combine them with wet mediums such as water, soap, food coloring, ice or shaving cream for a very different sensory experience. Add small objects to find such as plastic toys, magnetic objects or wooden blocks and tools with which to collect them. Also provide containers for scooping and pouring such as ladles, bottles or cups with or without holes in them.