Art with Sand and sea shell dough

Friday April 13th 2018 

Who doesn’t love a day at the beach?! 

Beach days are so fun! The quietness, the salty air, the soft sand under your feet, and of course, splashing in the water! Don’t we all wish those days could last forever? Now we can give our children the beach fun every day – with this special homemade play dough made with sand! 

It looks like sand, but does not fall apart. It even smells like salt – a real reminder of the beach! 

The ingredients we used today include: 

+ 2 cups of flour

+ About 1 cup of warm water

+ 1 Tbsp Oil 

+ At least 1 cup of sand 

Mix together and you should have a lovely sandy play dough, with great texture. As with any dough if its too crumbly add some more oil, and water if needs be, if its too wet and sticky add some more flour. The dough should be stiff and hold its shape, but soft and malleable. 

Lola quickly began pressing the shells and toys into the play dough to see what happened and if the objects had created an imprint. Ava and Olivia also enjoyed the aspects of sea life imprinting. 

Teddy was interested in manipulating the textures and using the spoon to scoop out the dough. He was also chopping up the pieces, using the popsicle stick as a knife. Maia was busily creating cakes and ice cream for her friends. 

Finn also liked using the tools to slice his play dough. Sophie wanted to make the pizza she had for lunch and went about rolling her dough flat. It then became a birthday cake. 

There were many ways in which our children played to extend their learning and interpretation of the environment. We could see the play evolve as time went on. We could observe the children use more complex ways of playing and building on prior knowledge of their world.