Today’s sensory play brought to you by craft sand! I am so excited to be a part of the Ultimate Guide to 50 Craft Materials hosted by the wonderful Craftualte! Please visit the Ultimate Guide to 50 Craft Materials landing page to read about all 50 craft materials, dates and bloggers participating in this amazing series.

Craft Sand Sensory Play & Art

Ultimate Guide to 50 Craft Materials

Colored Craft Sand Sensory Play

Pre-Writing Skills, Sensory Bin Play, Art Making!

You will never be without an idea again for any craft material. 

I chose colored craft sand as our special craft material for this awesome series! There is so much you can do with craft sand at any age. My son is 4 and loves hands-on sensory play, so I imagined we would really get our hands into this stuff! We know have bags of colored sand to choose from any time we want to do something new.

I purchased red, yellow, green and blue sand for less than $10 and it truly goes a long way depending on what you do with it. We also had a sensory bin from a while back which has 3 bags of sand in it. Craft sand sensory play is really quite fun but a little messy too!

Craft Sand Sensory Play Name Writing

I took a paper plat and spelled out his name in glue and set out a small container of sand. I showed him how he could sprinkle (um..dump) sand on the glue. He enjoyed picking it up to see his name left on the plate. We did this several times!

Colored Craft Sand Sensory Play Pre-Writing

I had Liam empty the sand from his paper plate name tag over a cookie sheet to catch the excess craft sand. Good way not to waste it! I spread a bit more on and he loved using his fingers to draw around on the sheet. We smoothed it and started over. I encouraged him to write his name about a dozen times! I was so excited he was willing to keep trying and let me help him too! I also gave him lots of time to draw around on his own in between practicing.

Colored Craft Sand Sensory Play Art Making

I chose to do another gluing art project with our colored craft sand. This time I filled our activity tray with a small bit of each color. A little does go a long way. We were having some issues with the glue bottle, so I just drizzled glue on the paper leaving big globs. I gave him a drinking straw and had him work some more pre-writing skills by spreading the glue with the straw. Then he sprinkled and dumped to his heart’s delight to make this beautiful craft sand picture!

Colored Craft Sand Sensory Play Bin

This is was our first ever use of craft sand. We have had this bin for over a year. I remember going out the morning a big snowstorm was predicted and grabbed a few bags of colored sand to make a dragon-themed sensory bin. We haven’t taken it out to much, but he sure had fun with it today. He just wanted jars, funnels, and his science equipment in it and was happy for quite a while. Sorry, no more dragons!

Throughout the year we have used craft sand in other sensory bins too!