I am always adding to my supply of sponges I get from the dollar store on hand for a variety of uses. These sponges come in three bright colors (red, yellow, and blue) and they are easy to cut and don’t have any type of scratch pad on the bottom plus I can purchase a whole set for just one dollar. I like to use these sponges for art, science, math and they make a fun addition to the water play table…
To promote conversation and recognition of shapes through our water play, I cut up several of our sponges into basic shapes for our water play table. Â The children found the shapes along with a tub of water, a few tongs for play, and tape squares on on our DIY magnet board to serve as a puzzle board (or an invitation to play outside of the tub)…
I chose to use our narrow water tank so we could save the rest of the space on our table for making wet sponge puzzles. I also encouraged the children to squeeze the water out of their sponges over the water tank before setting the sponges on the table…
Some of the children would remember to squeeze the water out first and others didn’t but I wasn’t worried about it either way…
For some of the children, the focus was on exploring the water filled sponges and for others, there was an interest in the puzzle-making. Since this process involved several levels of play or thinking, there was plenty of room for each child to explore the center in a way that was most interesting to him or her…
After the morning of play was over, we simply rinsed our sponges in hot water, then squeezed the water out of our sponges and set them aside to dry and use for another day or another process…
A super simple and fun way to blend the processes of water play with shapes and puzzles!
Available on Amazon
Links to Grow On
Make your own sponge blocks from Inner Child Fun