Rainbow Moon Sand 🌈 🌙

Most children absolutely love sand don’t they? They can spend hours in the sandpit or at the beach and it provides so many valuable memories and experiences for them. I vividly recall Arabella being so intrigued with this rainbow sand that she spent a full hour with it and repeatedly went back to it through the day. Sand play is not only captivating but so open ended for children because of it’s wide variety of uses - whether that be digging, filling, pouring, moulding or sieving. It provides the child with the freedom to lead their own play and exploration.

So moon sand is another amazing sensory experience for little ones that you definitely need to try...and can easily by created at home with just a few ingredients!!

This recipe is not edible because I used grated chalk to achieve more vibrant colours so I wouldn’t recommend for children who are still mouthing. However, you can buy powder food colouring which would make it taste safe or use normal food colouring (the colour just might not be as bright).

What you need (for each bowl/colour):

• 1 cup of flour

• 25 ml of vegetable oil

• Grated chalk in desired colours

• Bowls / pans / containers / sieve / muffin tray / buckets

• Spoons / scoops / spades

What you do:

- Simply mix together the 3 ingredients in a bowl - flour, oil & grated chalk. - I repeated this 5 times with different colours.

Of course, Arabella got busy straight away and mixed them up all together in her pans creating beautiful ‘Rainbow Moon Sand’.

Learning Opportunities

• Physical development - gross motor and muscle skills - digging, pouring, sifting, stirring, scooping etc.

• Physical development - fine motor skills and hand eye coordination - moulding the sand into shape and using tools.

• Maths - measuring, capacity, problem solving skills and mathematical language such as more/less, heavy/light, full/empty.

• Communication & Language - social activity, speaking and listening opportunities, naming objects and learning new vocab.

• PSED - sharing, working as a team, problem solving and communicating.

• Understanding the World - observing and discussing changes in materials.

• Expressive Arts & Design - role play, imagination, designing and creating sand sculptures.