Squishy Sand Sensory Play

 

This was another super simple sensory activity that E had way more fun with than I’d expected: Squishy Sand Sensory Play.

All it really was was wet sand – E decided to call it squishy sand, and she explored it very thoroughly. Most of her time was spent trying all kinds of play dough tools on it, with surprising success!

 

(E was 4 years and 5 months old.)

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

 

Materials for Squishy Sand Sensory Play:

• Wet sand.
• Cupcake liners (optional).
• Plastic gems (optional).
• Cookie cutters (optional). {Here are the letter and number cookie cutters E used.}
• Play dough tools (optional).
• Rolling pin (optional).

 

We had a bowl full of sand left over from our Fizzy Shaving Cream Sand Dough activity. It had been outside in the rain for several weeks, so when we got back to it, it was simply wet sand. Even the red powder tempera we’d used for the previous activity had long been washed out.

E decided that she needed silicone cupcake liners, and when she went to get them, she found some plastic gems that went great with the cupcake theme. {Even after all this time and all these sensory activities, she still loves making cupcakes from any material she can get her hands on. Check out how she did this with cloud dough and magic foaming dough!}

And so it began. She made cupcakes

 

 

and decorated them.

 

 

When she ran out of gems, she still made more cupcakes and simply left them undecorated.

 

 

Her “cupcake store” had to be defended from one or two baby brother attacks

 

 

but for the most part, Baby N was content playing with a dish towel off to the side. {Note he’s wearing 2-4 year socks at not quite 9 months old. Crazy.}

 

 

When E had made enough cupcakes for her liking, she decided to try out her play dough tools.

She made a little mound of squishy sand and rolled it out with a rolling pin, then used one of her cookie cutters on the flat surface.

 

 

The sand didn’t stick together like play dough would, of course, but she had fun gently removing the sand from the outline of the cookie cutter

 

 

before gathering up all the sand with her hands and starting over.

She did this for a while before she remembered her cupcakes, and while taking them apart, she noticed that her squishy sand actually held the shape very well. {Not unlike our sticky sand from last year – dry sand that we added two simple ingredients to.}

 

 

After all cupcakes had been dumped back into the big bowl, she went back to her play dough tools.

Even the strawberry mold had decent results {even though I didn’t get a proper picture of it}.

 

 

She really loved her rolling pin and cookie cutters, though, and kept playing with them for a long time.

 

 

 

When E was done, she got out the dustpan and started cleaning up the sand. Well, actually, she first extended her sensory play for a few more minutes, sweeping and spreading the sand around. She did actually clean up after that, though 😉

 

 

Looking for other sand activities?

Fizzy Shaving Cream Sand Dough

{Very Sandy} Sand Slime

First Baby Play with Sand

 

 

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