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Levels, Spaces, and Holes at the Sensory Table

by Thomas Bedard
January/February 2016
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Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/levels-spaces-and-holes-at-the-sensory-table/5022726/

Play acts across several adaptive systems to contribute to health, well-being, and resilience. These include pleasure and enjoyment; emotional regulation; stress response systems; attachments; learning and creativity…. The quality of children’s environments influences their ability to play.
(Lester & Russell, 2010, p. ix)

For me it begins with a story and a reflection, which lead to a framework for building easy-to-make, low-cost apparatus to enrich and enhance children’s play at the sensory table. It culminates in a set of axioms for sensorimotor play gleaned from observations of children exploring these different constructions installed in and around the sensory table.

Twenty-seven years ago, a mother brought in a big green pail and asked if I could use it. She worked at a fast food restaurant and the bucket was from a container of hamburger dill pickle slices — five gallons worth! I accepted her offer, but because I had a small classroom, I did not know where to put it. For the time being, I decided to put it in the corner near the sand table to hold the extra sand toys.

If you have been around children long enough, you can easily imagine what the children did first: dump all the sand toys ...

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