Moon Sand: Fun & Easy Activity

Sand…that one word can make me slightly cringe when I think of combining it with my kids. It almost has the same effect on me as does play dough, just becomes one big ol’ mess after approximately 5 minutes into play. I seriously contemplated this activity when it first crossed my mind. Then I thought about how much fun it would for the kids as well as a chance to throw in some education over this summer break. I knew it would be worth the clean up battle. So, I packed up my 3 kids and headed out to get sand. My first thought was just buy some kinetic sand, easy peasy. Then decided to make our own moon sand. This would allow for more ‘play time’ with the sand as well as give the kids a chance to count, measure and create their own sand. We were going to make some moon sand!

Making moon sand.

Now this moon sand is not like kinetic sand. It falls somewhere in between play sand and kinetic sand. I think it is similar to the way sand is once it gets a little wet. You can manipulate it better than dry sand. As we the kids were mixing and measuring, I went over some really cool facts about the moon. Here are the moon facts we talked about:

The moon is really cold at night.

The moon is really hot during the day.

The moon does not make its own light. The reason why you can see it in the sky is because the Sun is shining on it, making it look like it is glowing.

The moon has no air or wind, reason why astronauts have to wear space suits with oxygen.

The moon has craters on its surface. These craters are what make it look as if it has a face .

I braved up and let the kids make their moon sand indoors. Yep, the OCD mom inside was cringing the entire time. All said and done, it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. If you are short on cleaning time or don’t want to hassle with much cleanup afterwards, I would suggest making this outside. My son just had a tendency to catapult sand across the kitchen a few times as he was stirring it…don’t ask me how. We don’t ask questions any more. Once we had our sand made, we did bring it outside to play some more.

Now for the recipe, with some flour.

Let’s get this sand activity going…..The items needed to make moon sand are play sand, flour, and vegetable oil. The first recipe I found was for a big batch of sand. I will give you that recipe as well as the smaller batch we used. My kids insisted on having colored sand, and of course each wanted a different color. Moon sand with flour is very easy to make. Once everything was mixed, all that was left was to play! Again, this sand is not like kinetic sand. My kids loved being able to make as well as play in their own moon sand. It didn’t take long before they were trying to compete on who could make the tallest moon sand mountain.

Items Needed:                            Our Smaller Batch:

5 cups Play Sand                        2 cups Colored Play Sand

2 cups Flour                                 2/3 cup Flour

1 cup Vegetable Oil                     2/3 cup Vegetable Oil

As you can see from above, we made a smaller batch as well as added a little more vegetable oil. I wanted the sand to be just a tad bit more mold-able for the kids. I have seen recipes were you can use baby oil instead. We just went this route because it was something easily available. This activity was a lot of fun for my kids as well as me! I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did.

 

Have fun!