As your baby is growing and developing, it’s great to come up with different kinds of sensory play activities that will help strengthen their fine motor skills and activate their senses. Playing with kinetic sand is a great way to train both!
Kinetic sand is a very popular sensory entertainment, and it’s no wonder why! It’s super satisfying, and it gives you all the advantages of mud play, just with a much smaller mess.
Kids love sticking their hands in and squeezing the sand, but since kinetic sand is moldable, they can also use cookie cutters, sandcastle molds, and child-safe knives to cut the sand – they could drive toy trucks through to make wheel tracks and move the sand from spot to spot, really working on those fine motor skills. You could also hide small objects in the sand and make it a treasure hunt.
The possibilities with kinetic sand are endless, and fun is guaranteed; don’t be surprised if you can’t keep your hands out of it either!
How to make Kinetic Sand
This DIY kinetic sand only requires a few, simple ingredients:
You’ll need:
Dry, fine sand
Potato starch or cornstarch
Dish soap
Water
Food coloring (optional)
Here’s how to do it:
Pour your sand into a mixing bowl. You can make your batch as big as you want; we used 3-4 cups of sand. It’s very important that the sand is completely dry and free of moisture.
Add 2 tablespoons of starch to the sand and mix. Set it aside.
To turn the sand from regular sand to kinetic sand, we need to add a solution that will make it sticky and moldable. In a separate bowl, mix 1 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of dish soap until bubbles appear.
If you want to add food coloring, you can add it now. Add at least 6 drops of food coloring into the soapy water – you might need more than you think to color the sand. If you don’t want to use coloring agents, your kinetic sand will just stay sand-colored, which is still perfect for building sandcastles and playing construction with trucks!
Next up is adding the soapy solution to the sand. You might not need to use all the solution you made, so pour slowly and mix with the sand as you go. The final consistency should allow you to mold the sand in your hands and easily let it crumble apart.
Enjoy your kinetic sand!
There you have it! DIY kinetic sand for hours of fun, entertainment, and learning. If you keep the sand in an airtight container or a sandwich bag, you can save the sand and use it again and again!