Colored Gems on the Light Table

Several years ago we got a light table for free by posting through a local email list group. Our light table is an old, homemade, wooden photographer's box, and it's perfect for the type of play we do. I'm always on the lookout for cheap or free objects we can use on the light table, so I was excited last month when I spotted these colored gems.

I found these gems by chance in the pet section of Walmart. These colorful gems are actually made of plastic and they are a great size and weight. There are some specific color sets, or you can buy one set with several mixed colors. For our play I bought two multi-colored bags. 

Heart Play on the Light Table

Valentine's Day is coming, which means it's a great time to create and play with hearts. A few years ago I bought these fun plastic hearts at The Dollar Tree. We've used them in other sensory play ideas before, like this Valentine's Day Sensory Bin.

But the other day I was inspired to try them on the light table. 

Little Brother and I were home on a pretty dreary and rainy afternoon, looking for some ways to brighten up the rest of the afternoon when we got out the Valentine's supplies and remembered these colorful hearts. 

"Wintery Mix" Sight Words Practice

One of the thrills of being the parent of a kindergartner is watching him begin to take off in reading. I love hearing him work at sounding out words and being excited when he recognizes a word. His classroom teachers take both a phonics and whole word approach to teaching reading, which means each week they sound home both the letters/sounds they are working on and a few sight words for the week.

Sight words are primarily common words that are also tricky to sound out. You can find some examples of common kindergarten sight words here, although there are many different lists out there.

As a parent I can support his learning by giving him chances to read and write his school words at home. Over the break we came up with this fun alternative to writing with pencil and paper: using epsom salts on the light table. 

Mess Free Color Mixing on the Light Table

We love participating in the Virtual Book Club for Kids, and this month the author is Ellen Stoll Walsh. We enjoy several of her books, but particularly love the story of three little color mixing mice in Mouse Paint.

A while back we did a color mixing wheel based on the book, so this time I was looking for a different idea. As we're still in the dark days of winter I decided to incorporate the light table in our play. 

It's not often these days I get any time alone with Little Brother, but last weekend Daddy and Big Brother were on their own adventure so we had some down time together. Perfect opportunity to do a toddler focused color mixing activity.

Christmas Tree Numbers (for the Light Table)

There's something about these dark days of December that instantly make us want to get out our light table to play. With the coming of Christmas we decided to do some holiday themed light table play and incorporated Christmas trees.

We've done some alphabet play with the light table before with our light table letter match activity, so it was fun to try a number activity. Lately Big Brother has been really interested in numbers, reading them everywhere we go and trying to count to 100. The "teen" numbers still trip him up just a little when he's reading and saying them, although he's usually pretty comfortable by the time he gets to the twenties. I decided to make this activity be focused on the numbers 1 through 20. 

Pirate's Chest Light Table Game

Ever since Halloween we've loved pirates and pirate play. Beyond dress up, we also have a new pirate ship with wooden pirate dolls and several pirate coloring books. So why not extend our pirate play to the light table?

This recent rainy weather has been perfect for some more light table play as the afternoons have been pretty gray.

Light Table Letter Match

About a year ago I started noticing other bloggers' posts on using light tables with kids. Although they make light tables specifically for kids, I was inspired to ask on our town e-mail list if a former photographer had a table they would be willing to sell of give away. I was pretty excited when someone responded with a homemade one as it seemed perfect for using with kids.

We started exploring it just after the winter holidays, when the early evenings were dark and we needed something to perk up our afternoons. This is our most current exploration, and it was a huge hit!