Snow In the winter, when it's too cold to go outside, we bring the outside indoors. We Fill the sensory table with snow, spoons, plastic cups, sand castle molds, put on mittens and have a great time. Surprisingly enough, the snow lasts for quite awhile.

Marbles and Wooden Blocks The older children like to make mazes using the wooden blocks and let the marbles roll through the mazes. We have to set one end of the table a little higher to make it work.

Bingo Chips and Wands All of the children enjoy the magnetic bingo chips and wands. We add several colors of chips, they try to sort the chips by picking up certain colors with the magnetic wand.

Playdough and Clay The sensory table is a great place for playdough and clay. We add several toy rolling pins and cookie cutters and the children have fun making cookies. They also like to make bowls, animals and snakes. The sides of the table keep the playdough off the floor.

Shaving Cream It is messy, and your house as well as the children will smell like shaving cream long after the activity is over, but they love it. We Fill the sensory table with shaving cream and the children squish, mush and build fantastic towers, wild animals, and get shaving cream up to their necks. This is a great outdoor activity, they can run in the sprinkler when they are done to clean off.

Bubbles Another great outdoor activity. Make a bubble solution, add anything with holes for their wands and let them go. They are amazed by the bubbles they create. Good wand items: spatulas with holes, plastic strawberry baskets, small hoops, bent wire hangers, plastic molded hangers, and of course there are several neat wands available at the local department stores.

Pumpkin Gutting The sensory table is a great place to gut pumpkins.

Small Toys With Many Parts We also use our sensory table for toys with many or small parts, such as our Mr. Potato Head Collection. We must have over 100 eyes, mouths, noses, etc. The sensory table helps keeps the pieces off the floor and contained in a specific area. If we need to stop playing for lunch, we just put the cover on it rather than having to find and pick up all the pieces. This also works great for the miniature legos.

Sand or Cornmeal Sand or cornmeal works great for building mountains and making paths for match box cars and trucks. Sand works especially well if damp. It's not a good idea to dampen the cornmeal. Sand is also great for sandbox toys such as sifters and molds.

Bird Seed Bird seed is another favorite sensory table activity. We hide marbles in it and the children find them. It is not as easy as it sounds and they have fun sifting through the bird seed with their fingers to do so. They have fun using cups to measure with while filling other containers with the seeds. They also enjoy playing with cars and trucks in the bird seed. Occasionally, we grab some of the bird seed and feed the birds. Exploring the different types of seeds is another activity they enjoy.

Scissors, Cutting Younger children love to cut. While they are learning to use scissors we Fill the sensory table with paper scraps, old greeting cards, and scissors. They cut out pictures, shapes, or just practice using the scissors. Using the sensory table keeps the small pieces in one location rather than all over the floor.

Beads Our children love to string beads. To make this easier for the younger children, we have them string the beads on pipe cleaners, the beads don't fall off if they drop them.

Buttons I am not quite sure why, but children love buttons. We have a large box of buttons for them to enjoy. They sort them by color, shape, size, they count them and put them in piles, they string them on yarn and pipe cleaners. They always seem to find a neat button that they have never seen before. We have even sewn the buttons on t-shirts and costumes we have made at daycare.

Shells Shells are another fun activity. Like the buttons the children like to explore them, sort them, count them and glue them to anything.

Plastic Easter Eggs Our children use the beads, buttons and shells to put in the plastic eggs. We write a number on each egg and the children count out the right amount of items and put them in each egg. This is actually a pre math skill.

Greeting Cards All children like to cut. Old greeting cards are great for cutting, they are stiff for the beginners who have not yet mastered scissors. Greeting cards are actually pretty easy to come by. Parents can save them, thrift stores sell them for pennies, get hold of your local card shop to find out how you can obtain outdated cards.

Baseball, T-ball The children really enjoy playing baseball and t-ball. We have several mitts, balls and a set of bases. We do not keep score or have strikes or fouls. Each child is allowed to bat until they hit a ball, we have a T-stand if they need it. All children run the bases and have turns playing outfield.

Swimming The in-ground pool is enjoyed all summer. Each summer we have a certified swim instructor come on site and provide lessons for all interested children. They learn all the basic swim strokes and get familiar with going under water. The children always look forward this activity.

Swing-set, Play Area Our play area provides hours of fun. Our large, wooden swing-set has several items for the children to enjoy. It has 2 swings, 2 styles of rope climbers, a slide, a horse swing, a covered fort, a steering wheel and telescope, a tire swing and a trapeze bar. Along side the swing-set we have two large climbers with slides and a teeter totter. There is also a play deck that has a playhouse, picnic table and a small slide.