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Winter Counting Sensory Table

January 9, 2015 by Anna Ranson

Put together a simple and inviting winter themed counting sensory table, for exploring textures, sorting and counting small amounts of tactile items in play! Playful maths learning with a seasonal, Wintry theme for toddlers and preschoolers to explore.Winter themed counting sensory table

In the colder and wetter months I usually bring our Step 2 water and sand table inside from the garden and set it up as a permanent sensory pay table in the kitchen. It’s very easy to tip in some dry pasta or pom poms, along with tongs or scoopers, and leave them to play with the materials while I cook and there are so many possibilities of things to add! (Take a look here at our Sensory Table archives to get you started on some more ideas.)

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Winter themed sensory table

This week we tipped in some dry white rice (I store plain and dyed rice in jars and re-use it over many years in sensory play tables so that it isn’t a waste.) Into this snowy, wintry base sensory material layer we added lots of clear, sparkly and blue materials with highly tactile elements for handling, counting and moving, including:

Clear and blue glass gems

Snowflake sequins

Large blue and turquoise shape sequins

Flat-backed shape glass nuggets

Paper straws

Sparkly and smooth pom poms

Sparkly, silver pipe cleaners, twisted into spirals

Tea-bag strainer for scooping up and transferring the objects (fantastic for fine motor development!)

Over the top of this we sprinkled lots of white and silver iridescent glitter and stirred it through to make it all sparkle!

Winter sensory tub materials

I also added 5 little spice dishes (I got these as a set in the £1 shop) into which I had written the numbers 1-5 using a Sharpie marker. There were no instructions given with these dishes or the scooper, but I was hoping the girls would start to collect various items and count them out to match the corresponding numerals while they played, which they did indeed do.

This is a great 1:1 correspondence activity for preschoolers and after the dishes are filled they can be put in the right order too.Winter sensory counting bin

See more WINTER PLAY activities 

And all our PLAYFUL MATHS activities

And TODDLER PLAY activities

What they are learning as they play:

maths: counting using 1:1 correspondence, matching quantities to numerals, sequencing, ordering, sorting and grouping

physical: sensory exploration, tactile play, transferring small objects, pincer grasp, muscle development through use of small tools

literacy: descriptive language skills, storytelling and imaginative play

Related Posts

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  • Birthday Cake Cloud DoughBirthday Cake Cloud Dough
  • Pom Pom Scoop and Transfer for ToddlersPom Pom Scoop and Transfer for Toddlers
  • Dinosaur Bones Match and Measure Set
  • Toddler Pattern Sort and Drop Game

Filed Under: Age, Counting, Fine Motor Development, Invitations to Play, Kinaesthetic Learning, Learn, Math, Messy Play, Motor Skills, Play, Play Prompts, Preschooler, School Age, Sensory, Sensory Rice, Sensory Table, Sensory Tubs, Toddler, Winter Tagged With: Early Maths, Maths Play, Playful Maths, Preschool Activities, Sensory Play, Toddler Play

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About The Imagination Tree Hello and welcome! I'm Anna, Mama of 4, early years teacher and play enthusiast from the UK! Click here to read more about me.

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