Art And Play: The Nature Way - Sand

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It's that time again! Art And Play: The Nature Way is back with another installment! This time it's all about sand. Unfortunately, we don't live close to any great naturally occurring sand. R would really love it if we did! When we think of sand, we immediately think of the beach, which happens to be R's favorite place in the world.

Once we surprised him with a small vacation at the beach. We didn't tell him where we were going. We just loaded up and drove the six hours to his most coveted vacation spot. He was really surprised! Now, anytime we say we have a surprise he immediately asks if it's the beach. Sadly, not all surprises are the beach. We were reminded of that fact just last week, when we had a small surprise for him that immediately got his hopes up. So I thought I'd bring a little bit of beach fun to our yard.

I made moon sand. It's great for sand castles and such when it's winter and there isn't a huge body of water nearby. It's crumbly, yet moldable. And it's a lot of fun! I went back to my last post about homemade moon sand and decided to do some more experimenting. I came up with a new recipe that we liked a lot. I hope you like it too.

Moon Sand Recipe

What you need:
4 cups play Sand
2 cups corn starch
1 cup flour
1.5 cups warm water

What you do:
Blend together the dry ingredients and then slowly add the warm water. I added half a cup at a time and mixed. This allowed for me to make sure it was well mixed and the right consistency.

The Final Result:
I think the final result will depend on the type of sand you use. If your sand is really coarse you might want to add more flour. I think the flour softened ours up a bit. Our end result was still a bit different from the commercial variety of moon sand, but it was our favorite homemade kind thus far. It made a good bit and was much cheaper.

The Play

I set the moon sand out in a bin on a marvelously sunny day. I gathered a few of R's beach toys and just let him play. He felt the sand squish between his fingers. He made moon sand pizzas. He used his imagination and had fun. It was really simple and child led. And without me prompting, he even proclaimed, "This is just like the beach!!"

After we got through playing in the sand, we went inside and continued our beach play with a bath filled with all of R's under the sea toys. He had a nice time splashing and playing with his sea creatures, and it really added to the experience.

I keep rediscovering that it really doesn't take much to make my child feel special and happy. This was a really easy activity to provide and it was very well received.




You don't have to take it outside though. Moon sand is a lot of fun indoors as well! If you're worried about the mess you could always set your container on a plastic tablecloth from the dollar store. After the play just pick up the tablecloth and dump the mess. It also vacuums up quite easily, and since it was so cheap to make you don't have to worry about it being wasted.

And be sure to check out Dilly-Dali Art to see their creative (and beautiful) sand art. 

Did you miss the fun last time? We had a lot of creative fun with rocks.

What's your favorite way to have fun with sand?

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