Spotlight Saturday: Sensory Tub

It's the first Saturday in September down south which means FOOTBALL season  has officially started!! I love college football and am looking forward to sitting in my pj's watching it all day:) 

Saturday also means it's time for Spotlight Saturday with my blogging bestie over at Kindergarten Dragons!

This weekend I am going to spotlight the Sensory tub!

 

This is the first year that I have used a sensory tub with my kinders! I know I am behind the times ha! I have struggled the last few years with trying to balance developmentally appropriate kindergarten and the rigorous standards that we have to teach our kinders in order for them to be successful as firsties. I have always taught through thematic units and worked very hard to make learning fun and engaging. I still felt that I was missing something! I was missing play! This past summer I did a lot of research, blog stalking and Pinterest stalking to find new ways to incorporate play into my classroom and keep the learning going! We all know that kinders learn best through play so why not bring it back. I am very fortunate that my school system as a whole and my administrators are realizing that our children need this! Ok off my soap box and back to the spotlight ha!!

 My kinders absolutely LOVE the sensory tub center! I am so thrilled I decided to jump on this band wagon and wish now I had incorporated this into my classroom much earlier! This center has quickly become a class favorite. They will even ask if they can go to this center during our social/play centers in the afternoon!

I have been leary of putting food in my tub because of critters ha! I plan on using rice soon though!The first few weeks I put colored pom poms in the tub. They had to find the letters and match them to the letter on the cards. 

The next week we were learning about Pete the cat so they had to find the letter cards and then trace the matching letter. 

I found the leap frog letter magnets at the thrift store for $2.00! It had the upper and lower case letters!! So I added the magnets to the sensory tub and used a sharpie to write the letters on a cookie sheet I got at the dollar tree and the kiddos matched the letters. 

My little friends said this was the best center ever ha!

I wanted to change out the filler for this upcoming week so I found these colorful paper shreds at my local Dollar Tree. I spent $10. I also found these foam letter puzzles and thought they would be perfect! So I put the letters in the tub and the kiddos will match them to the puzzles. 

I would strongly encourage you to incorporate a sensory tub in your classroom. It is a super fun and engaging center for your kiddos and Pinterest in loaded with ideas!! It is not super expensive to get started either. go for it your kiddos will thank you! I would eventually like to have a sensory table and am looking into ordering one or having one built for my classroom. 

Now I am off to watch some football and will leave you with a little Bama humor:) Roll Tide!

Head over to Kindergarten Dragons to link up and join in on the fun!