Inside: Work on fine motor skills with this hands-on pumpkin water table. Using droppers with water is a great way to strengthen the fingers, getting them ready for writing!
Looking for ways to get those hands ready for writing this fall?
How about adding small pumpkins and droppers to your water table?
Using droppers is one of my favorite ways to strengthen fine motor skills. Some examples:
During our pumpkin theme, I found a nice stash of party favor sized pumpkins and decided to place them in our water table along with droppers.
Our toddlers loved filling the pumpkins with water and dumping the water out, over and over again!
Benefits of the Water Table
It just might look like filling and dumping, but there is so much more happening when young children play at the water table, such as:
- Sensory Exploration
- Science
- Math
- Creativity
- Social Skills
- Language Development
And, by adding droppers, we can add fine motor development!
How to Put Together a Pumpkin Water Table That Strengthens the Fingers
Supplies Needed
- Droppers
- Party favor-sized pumpkins
- Water
- Bin to hold water
We also added some cups and strainers once the children got started.
Assembling the Pumpkin Water Table
If you love activities that are easy to set up, that will be another benefit to this water table.
Seriously, all you need to do is pour some water into the bin (or bins, as in our case). I keep the water level low for less spills. (Although I cannot say it all stayed inside the bins. It never does, so have towels nearby.)
Then, add your pumpkins and droppers and anything else you think would work well.
Fine Motor Benefits
When you are choosing materials for your pumpkin water table, think about strengthening those fine motor skills.
Droppers are one of my first choices when using water.
The entire hand is being used as the children squeeze and release the bulb.
Large Droppers
For 2 year olds, I first introduce droppers using ones with larger bulbs, as pictured above.
You will need to demonstrate how to hold the dropper, squeezing and releasing. It might take some time, but after showing them a few times, and then them practicing on their own, they will get it.
Pipettes
For 3 year olds and up, I then switch to the pipette, which has a much smaller bulb.
These activities show our 3 year olds using pipettes:
- Water Transfer Activity
- Dropping Watercolors On Paper Towels
- Watercolor Shamrock Art
- Watercolor Leaves
The photo below shows a 3 year old using a pipette:
Scooping and Pouring
Some children will simply want to use the pumpkins alone to fill with water and pour, over and over again.
If you add cups, as I eventually did, the children can pour the water from the pumpkins into them.
There’s still lots of fine motor going on here as the hand controls the movements of the pumpkin.
Hand-Eye Coordination
Along with strengthening the hands and fingers, this pumpkin water table is an excellent choice for working on hand-eye coordination.
The children are concentrating as they aim the water from the droppers into the opening of the small pumpkins.
More Ideas Using Our Activity Table
I’m often asked about our Activity Table, as it is shown in many of our posts and videos.
You can see the variety of ways it is used here:
- Valentine’s Heart Water Activity
- Frozen Hearts Sensory Bin
- Apple Paint and Wash Activity
- Frog Puppet Craft
- Rainbow Collage
- Farm Animal Washing
- Frog Water Bin
- Gingerbread Art
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