sand trays

Sand trays are a Montessori tool that I love. I saw them being used in a new entrant classroom today so thought I'd make one at home. I'd love a wooden box and fine, yellow sand ( like in the bottom picture below) but we didn't have those, just a tray and some sand from the old sand pit. It still had the desired effect though- the kids loved using their fingers to form letters, numbers and pictures. I might make up letter and numeral some cards similar to those shown in the last picture. The dot shows the starting point which I like. Once the shape etc is drawn you just give the tray a light shake and start over again. The video I made of M was on the wrong setting and is a horrible coloura nd quality- but still has cute factor so it made it on here : )