Taste Safe Kinetic Sand
Kinetic sand is a great sensory activity for a wide age range. If you have never felt it before, it is a unique substance. It is sand-like when left alone but when you grasp it in your hand you are able to mold it. But once you add pressure to the mold, it crumbles back to its sand-like state.
With younger kiddos, everything seems to go straight to the mouth. This kinetic sand recipe is taste-safe, meaning if they do place their hand in their mouth while playing, it’s perfectly alright. Do not encourage your child to eat this in large quantities. This activity requires adult supervision at all times.
This activity is a great sensory activity for all ages and can have many more developmental benefits than you may think. Here’s a deeper look into sensory play and its benefits.
What is Sensory Play?
Sensory play includes any activity that incorporates the five common senses.
Activities that involve movement of the body, such as awareness or position of their body) can also be considered sensory activities. When you think about it, so many activities that our babies do in their day-to-day play could be considered a sensory activities! If you would like to browse all of the sensory activities, we have shared on Little Learning Club, you can do so here.
A few examples of sensory play include balancing while walking on a curb, making moon sand, or doing a taste test of a variety of fruits. Listening to kids’ audiobooks is another fun and educational sensory activity!
Benefits of Sensory Play
Creating activities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through sensory play is crucial to brain development. Sensory Play helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways. Sensory activities encourage the development of fine and gross motor skills as well as language development. While the idea of setting up an activity that has THIS many benefits may seem intimidating, it is actually quite simple! The more you research these types of activities, the more you realize that there are opportunities for sensory learning just about everywhere!
The Benefits of Sensory Play in Babies (0mo-12mo)
Sensory play helps babies to learn more about the world around them! Sensory play time creates a whole new world of stimuli (think new textures they have never felt or new sounds they have never heard). Your babies brain creates new connections as they play and experience all these new stimulations. Simple sensory play can help your baby grow in so many ways!
The Benefits of Sensory Play: Toddlers (13mo-3 yrs)
As your baby becomes a toddler, there is a whole new level of skills they are working to develop, like language skills and cognitive abilities. This opens up a whole new world of sensory play possibilities. Try to incorporate activities that allow them to be a little more independent while also incorporating age-appropriate educational aspects like color matching, sorting smallest to largest or vice versa, and matching.
The Benefits of Sensory Play: Preschoolers (3-5 yrs)
Starting at the age of three, the independence in play really increases. Aim to find activities that allow this and encourage it! Language development is also increasing at a rapid rate. Challenge your preschooler to tell you more about what they are doing during their sensory play. Can they tell you a story about their activity? What challenges are they facing? This will also help boost the cognitive development of the activity.
Now onto the recipe!
Taste Safe Kinetic Sand Recipe
-1 Cup Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Sugar
-1/2 Cup Corn Starch
-1 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
-1/4 Cup Water
-Optional: Food coloring (see recommendation below)
Directions:
-Start by combining the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl (Baking soda, sugar, cornstarch, and cream of tarter)
-In a separate bowl, mix your food coloring (if you choose to use it), with the 1/4 cup of water and mix well.
-Add half of the colored water to your dry ingredients (about 2 tbsp). Mix well
-Add the rest of the water and mix well
That’s it!
The Best All Natural Food Coloring
Whenever it comes to food coloring, I like to bypass the artificial stuff as much as possible. My go-to choice lately has been the Watkins all-natural food coloring. It is made with natural vegetable juices and absolutely no artificial dyes. You can find it at Target or on Amazon.
