When my daughter was younger, like a lot of kids, she was really into sensory experiences. We made cloud dough and colored rice and pasta, and SO much homemade playdough I actually wrote multiple blog posts about it (this one was our favorite, except maybe the chocolate one, which I think I shared recently in a Valentine’s Day post).
One of her favorite things that I didn’t make was kinetic sand. Purchased kinetic sand is like regular sand, but it’s been coated with silicone oil, which gives the sand viscoelasticity. Which is a fancy science word for something that flows when not under pressure, but becomes a sort of rubbery solid under stress.
If you want to read more about the science of kinetic sand, check out this post from Live Science.
It’s not actually that hard to make kinetic sand at home, though I never tried it because we had plenty of the store-bought stuff.
There’s a recipe for a relatively small quantity at Crafty Morning, that combines the sand with an ingredient of a similar texture you’ll have to click over to read about.
If you want to make kinetic sand for a crowd, the Minnesota Children’s Museum has a bigger volume recipe that’s given in parts, so you can scale it up to fill a kiddie pool or down for a couple of kids to play with.
And how do you play with it? Kids won’t need a lot of instruction, you just squish it and mold it and see what happens. Cookie cutters and small, fillable molds are great to use with kinetic sand, as well as plastic knives, spoons, silicone baking cups, any little things you might use in small world play. If you have stamps like you would use with play dough that’s another great option.
[Photo: Crafty Morning.]
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