Play Idea: Kinetic Sand and Legos

July 29, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

When my daughter was younger, one of her favorite sensory things to play with was kinetic sand. This is a special kind of sand that has a soft and squishy texture, and it’s moldable and holds its shape until you squish it again.

We used to play with all sorts of containers to fill and mold, and cookie cutters to make other shapes. There are all sorts of ways to play with it, but I never thought of adding Legos or Duplo blocks to the mix.

And Next Comes L shares the idea of stamping kinetic sand with blocks. This is a simple fine motor activity that can be used in a lot of different ways. You can stamp out the shapes of letters or numbers, count the number of dents the block makes in the sand, practice sight words, make a repeating pattern with different blocks and have kids complete the pattern, make shapes with the blocks and stamp those into the sand (and challenge someone else to build the same shape) and so on.

Kids will probably come up with their own activities when you give them sand and blocks together to play with. This is a great invitation to play that you don’t have to set up at all other than putting our some different kinds and sizes of blocks with the sand, or you can make some idea cards if you want to steer the play in a particular direction.

Check out the post from And Next Comes L to see how they played and more ideas for what you can do with them.

And visit this post all about kinetic sand for more information on what kinetic sand is, how it works and how you can make your own if you want to.

How do you play with kinetic sand? I’d love to hear your ideas!

[Photo: And Next Comes L]

Next Plan Idea:

Easy Sensory Activities for Valentine's Day

Have you read?

Reflecting on the Past Year with Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply