Cloud Dough, Moon Sand, And A Fail

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Today's favorite activity was inspired by two fabulous blogs. We are still participating in the play challenges (even though I haven't blogged about them all, we've had a blast with every one of them) and today's challenge was mixing concoctions from Hands On : As We Grow. Then I was catching up on some blog reading and discovered TinkerLab's great post on cloud dough. I had been wanting to make cloud dough for the longest time and had just never got around to it. I thought it would be perfect for today, although you absolutely do not need an excuse to make that stuff!

I figured it would be fun to make both cloud dough and moon sand to compare and contrast. We started off making the cloud dough. We used 4 cups of flour and a half a cup of baby oil. R measured and mixed. He absolutely loved the stuff! He immediately started pretending his fingers were ice skaters and renamed it snow dough. I loved it too. The texture is amazing.

Then we made the moon sand, or what turned into the sand plaster. It was a horrible fail. Maybe it was because our play sand was too coarse? It was extremely hard to mix and turned into a sand plaster that hardened almost immediately into a huge block of unpleasantness. My hands were red from the mixing and R was not impressed. We still compared it though and talked about the different textures and colors. R was quick to name his favorite, even though typically he is an "I like it all " kind of child that refuses to choose a favorite on most things.

I had given up and we were having a blast with the cloud snow dough when my mind wandered back to the store bought moon sand and it's consistency. What is it that they use?!? It was similar to the cloud dough, and yet different. So we decided to do a bit more experimenting. I used the earlier recipe for moon sand, but where it called for play sand, I replaced it with flour. This is what we did:

• 3 cups corn starch
• 1.5 cups cold water
• 6 cups flour

Mix the cornstarch into the cold water until smooth(ish). Add one cup of flour and mix in. Repeat until all the flour is added to the mixture.

It is very similar to the store bought moon sand. It's not an exact replica but it made us happy. It looked similar to the cloud dough but had a different texture. We then compared and contrasted the cloud dough and the moon sand. It was neat to play with two different mixtures that looked almost identical but felt completely different. R said he really liked the moon sand, but the cloud dough was still his favorite. He was very vocal during this process and really got into comparing the mixtures. He was thoughtfully describing each aspect on his own. I loved listening to him.

We used kitchen utensils for play. He also made up stories as he explored. We had a lot of fun, and he insisted on playing longer on his own. I'm thinking we'll be playing with this again tomorrow!

So thank you ladies, for the inspiration and motivation. You helped make our day a fun one!

Have you been successful at making moon sand? Do you have a recipe that would be better than the one I improvised? I would love for you to share!

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