Thinking inside the box

We recently received an order from our new favorite place to order Burt's Bees-Frontier wholesale coop. It came in a big box with a lot of peanuts. After taking out all our goodies, I automatically put the box out of Emily's reach until I could properly dispose of the packing peanuts and recycle the box. Then I started thinking, this could be a comparable alternative to a water table. The preschool I did my student teaching at occasionally switched out the water for sand, rice, or other similar things. Packing peanuts might be similar, and if nothing else, they could buy me a few minutes and would be easy enough to sweep up. :) It was a huge success, as long as I managed to keep baby Joe away from the peanuts. . .although, just the box would have been fun, too.
A side note on water tables-they are one of my favorite preschool activities for so many reasons!! They allow children opportunity for open-ended play: encouraging creative thinking, problem solving, early math and science concepts, and the textures are therapeutic for children-how much better can it get?!? It would be pretty simply and cost effective to get a rubbermaid container and fill it with water, rice, sand, etc, and give a child some measuring cups, old yogurt containers. . .