Salt Tray with Religious Symbols

Salt trays are popular on the homeschooling and Montessori sites these days. The idea is that children can copy a picture, letter, number, etc. using a finger, chopstick, q-tip, or the like, enjoying the tactile experience while learning how to form the new symbol. It's a little different, highly adaptable, and erases like magic when you gentle shake the tray (kind of like an Etch-A-Sketch!).

I'd seen a very simple one here, done with alphabet letters, and adapted the same idea to religious symbols, examples of which I painted in watercolor on thick watercolor paper.

The tray is a repurposed Melissa and Doug tray that once held a letter puzzle. These are pretty easy to find at thrift stores, but I bet many parents of young kids right now would have one they'd be willing to pass along.

The salt isn't very thickly poured--just enough to fully cover the bottom, and so that when one draws with the finger, the design goes through to the bottom of the tray. (Some people paint the bottom of the tray for better contrast. That looks nice, I think, but takes more time than I wanted to spend on this.)

The watercolor paper is cut down to fit in the small side of the tray. There are religious symbols on both sides, so 12 total.

In the Spirit Play classroom, this could be a special worktime choice during a world religions lesson, or to correspond with a churchwide interfaith endeavor. It could also sit alongside the finger labyrinth on a shelf dedicated to kinesthetic work, available at any time.