We had some left over coloured sand and I thought it would be neat to explore it on our light table . I covered the table with a clear garbage bag in order to protect the surface from getting scratched and also to make clean up easier.
The rainbow presentation made it immediately appealing to my son, who couldn't wait to get his fingers in it.
As he slowly and carefully swirled his finger, he mixed the colours together. They looked like a 'colour explosion' he observed!
The light from below shone through the sand, illuminating it in places where it wasn't as thickly layered. My son loved the feel of the sand and spent a great deal of time grabbing it and letting it trickle through his fingers.
After a while he decided that he wanted to do some writing in the sand. We practiced the first letter of his name over and over.
We also used other materials to create the letter "c". Here we layered rocks on top of the "c" he had already printed in the sand.
This would be a great tactile experience for anyone wishing to engage children in some small group or individual letter writing/identification work, especially those of you who engage in RTI experiences in your classroom. Children would be motived to participate by the nature of the messy materials, use of the light table, and tactile experience of constructing the letters.
ok - after spending five minutes on your site, I've decided that i NEED a light table! Can you tell me where you got yours? It's a nice size!
ReplyDeleteOurs is a great medium sized "Whitney" light table that I absolutely love! A friend got it for us. I know there are instructions online for how to make your own, and we've also used tattoo light boxes from craft stores like Michael's before too.
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