Sensory Shelf: The Sensory Table Outdoors

Water Play!

Jul 23, 2026

I have been facilitating sensory play for 25 years. Long before I realized the importance of these activities to emotional regulation and brain development, I understood that this was important play to children themselves. This is the first piece in a series exploring sensory work. In the series I will be posting about sensory lab, integrating language arts, nature sensory play, the sensory table and more. Most importantly I will be telling you about the sensory play, in which children find joy.

A mess for the sake of sensory experience is usually fine by me, and also sensory play, often, is so much easier to clean up outdoors. I am fortunate to have worked for most of my career in places that prioritize children’s free movement from indoors to outdoor spaces making outdoor sensory tables always accessible.

It is also possible for any of the activities below to happen indoors with a little care for setup and cleanup. If you have hard floors that makes things much easier. Just give plenty of floor space to the table area and use less water or material in the table. If needed you could create a boundary on the number of children as well. When I needed to offer these kinds of experiences indoors, sometimes due to weather or due to the setting, I taught kids how to help with clean up and had more boundaries on the exuberance of play! If you have carpeted floors, a shower curtain, tarp or plastic tablecloth under the table can work! Sometimes it might work to have the sensory table just outside the egress door even if other outdoors play cannot be available. I did this in my kindergarten for years with my assistant or myself positioned to see the 2-4 children at the sensory table.

As for the water table furniture itself, I have used everything from a dishpan or flat rubbermaid storage box to classroom style sensory tables, plastic outdoor tables to the now wonderful Outlast Sensory Table from Community Playthings. While our Outlast table is incredible, you can have just as inpired play in a dollar store dishtub!

So what to put in the table!? Water is a great start. You can add so many things from there. So here we go! I’ll start with the simplest ideas and go from there.

Tools

funnels, mixers, droppers, pails, cups, bowls, syphons, strainers, tongs, brushes

Shells, Animals, Gems, Boats

It really doesn’t take much to inspire or renew water play.

Mermaids

I collected the mermaids at the bottom from eBay that are like the ones I had as a chid. Eventually I found these newer versions to add to our mix. Once the mermaids even had their own water slide.

Colored Water

You can color the water with washable paint or food coloring.

Floating blocks

Most foam blocks work.

Washing

Just adding suds is a great start. Sometimes we add suds and hand mixers. Other days we add scrub brushes and some of the outdoor plastic animals that could always use a good wash. We’ve added rocks to wash had a tricycle line up for the trike wash. And our favorite baby doll washing. This works really well with our favorite anatomically correct plastic baby dolls.

Packing peanuts

I do not often come by the dissolving packing peanuts, but I usually test one from any packing I receive just to be sure! They make for great sensory play.

Coconut Hull Block

This is also known as coconut coir. It’s super satisfiying for kids to water and feel the substrate expand as water is added. When play is done, it can be used in the garden!