My 3 year old has been asking for a sand/water table. My daughters birthday is coming up in June so I thought I might get one for them to share. Are there certain brands I should stay away from? I don't want to get one that isn't going to last a few Summers. Do your kids love theirs or is it just a huge mess. I plan to keep it on the porch along with the sand box.
This is my second question today, sorry! We are going to the store later tonight so I might just pick one up then if I get some good responses!
We have a Step 2 from Costco....my kiddos love it...the sand with the water can be a bit messy. We have done one side with water and lots of golf balls too and they thought that was fun.
WE LOVE OUR SAND AND WATER TABLE! I bought mine from kmart for $60 about 6 years ago, and it still looks brand new. It's so awesome. I think it's the Little tykes step 2 the other moms mentioned :)
We have one and I was just telling some of my friends how some purchases for kids you just hit the jackpot on.This is one of those for us. Hours and hours of entertainment for our now 4 yr old boy and 6 yr old girl and our one year old is learning to love it. We actually have turned it into a sand/sand table. The water side was just a pain in the butt! But the kids love it still. We've had it for three years now it is more then worth the $$ we paid for it. It's a mess though so be prepared we go through two bags of sand a year...which Idon't think is too much and at only 3ish dollars a bag not to expensive either. It took a year for my hubby to just give up on keeping it clean though...it's really impossible with sand but worth it if you can handle a little mess.
we have a step 2 naturally playful sand and water table. http://www.step2.com/product.cfm?product_id=1304
my boys 6, 4, and 2 love it. we have put sand in it and they always mix the sand and water into both sides so it can be pretty messy. if you have it next to a sand box maybe just doing water will be ok. also i would get one with a cover so the water doesn't get all yucky. and walmart sells crayola colored sand in their gardening section. it comes in pink purple blue and green- my kids love it:)
We have a Step 2 one, the older model of this: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=step+2+water+and...#
DD loves it! And I know DS (1) will too when he gets bigger.
It has worn well and been a good investment, IMO.
HTH!
ETA: One year we didn't get sand for it (can't remember why) I used dish soap and made super bubbles in it instead. Huge hit!
We had a water table outside that my kids played with from the time they could stand until about first grade or so. They loved it! I actually bought it from a preschool supply house (Lakeshore Learning) so it was kind of expensive but it was huge and durable. We had a sandbox for sand play, and of course water and sand would get transported back and forth between the two, so yes it's messy but that's part of the fun, SO worth it :)
We have a sand/ water table it is by step 2. They are a good company I think. I like ours because it is green/brown and not real bright or neon colored, and it comes with an umbrella. My son is 2.5 and we've had it on our patio since Christmas and he still plays with it all the time. It is pretty messy but we just sweep around it. It has a lid that bungees down so when you put that on it looks pretty tidy. There's no way he'll keep the sand on the sand side/ water on the water side, it's all just mud, I think that's the fun part for him.
we have one too, but we don't put sand in it. I heard that putting sand and water in it ends up in a sandy water table. My kids (3 and 6) love playing with it.
My son had one of the basic ones...I can't remember the brand but one side was just for water and the other side just for sand. No gadgets or fancy stuff. We just bought those sand toys that you can pour sand/water in and you can watch it spin and pour out. And we got him a bunch of construction vehicles and it kept him busy for hours. We threw extra "treasures" in there so he could find them (small ball, action figures, plastic bugs and snakes).
I guess there are some that are fancy w/a theme...I don't think my son would have played w/his table more or less if it was basic or had a theme...he just loved playing in it.
Get one!
