This Moon Sand Recipe is prefect to make moon sand at home. It is easy, quick and the materials you require to make are most likely already in your home!
Moon Sand offers a sensory play like no other. This soft, moldable sand is almost hard to put down and a perfect way to engage your child in sensory activities as well as improve their motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
Table of Contents:
Advantages of Playing with Moon Sand
Difference Between Moon Sand & Kinetic Sand
What is Moon Sand?
The best phrase that describes this sand is “moldable sand”. When compared to play-dough and clay, it is much easier to mould, and hence is great for babies and toddlers who haven’t got strong hands.
Quick Tip: Sensorial activities offer great learning and cognitive advantages to young children. Make sure to include a variety of sensorial activities like Oobleck, Kinetic Sand in your child’s play routine.
DIY Moon Sand Recipe
Homemade moon sand recipes require just a couple of items and you are ready to get started. It is perfect activity to try on a rainy day, is extremely easy and so much fun to make that you can even involve your kids in making it or let them make it themselves.
Ingredients In Moon Sand Recipe
2 cups of Play Sand
1 cup of Cornstarch
½ cup of water
Tray
How To Make Moon Sand at Home
Step 1: Add the 2 cups of colored play sand to a tray.
Step 2: Add the cup of cornstarch to the sand and mix it well.
Step 3: Create a small well in the middle of the sand-cornstarch mixture and add the ½ cup of water.
Step 4: Finally, mix the ingredients together. And that’s it! That’s all it takes for making DIY moon sand!
Related: Also try your hands at Fake Snow. It is perfect for sensorial play and promises hours of fun!
You could make as much or as little as you want by following the ratio of 4:2:1 – 4 cups of sand to 2 cups of cornstarch to a single cup of water.
If your kids have started learning about ratios, get them to apply their knowledge when making a larger quantity. It makes for a fun way to learn maths hands-on!
Related: Put these hands-on math skills to practise as your kids make Playdough at home.
Edible Moon Sand Recipe
If you are planning to make moon sand for your toddler, there is taste-safe recipe that you should try. Toddlers and young kids like putting play things in their mouths and you would definitely not want them to put anything with artificial play sand in their mouths.
So instead, try the edible moon sand recipe with flour that requires a few items that you can easily find around the house in your pantry or at your local store.
Ingredients Needed To Make Edible Moon Sand
4 cups of Flour or cornstarch (also called corn flour)
4 cups of brown sugar
Food coloring – Optional
½ cup of coconut Oil – sunflower oil, canola oil, or vegetable oil.
Tray
Note: In case you are wondering, we are recycling an old oil bottle to store our organic cold-pressed coconut oil. Though not most attractive, recycling plastic bottles is a great start to save the planet.
How To Make Edible Moon Sand
Step 1: Add the flour and brown sugar to a shallow tray and mix them well.
Step 2: Lastly, add a few drops of food coloring and the coconut oil to the tray and mix well.
It’s as simple as that! This 2-step recipe is super easy and just perfect to your toddler to make.
Related: If you kids like making their play things, we bet they will love to these Exciting Science Experiments. They are easy and a fun way to sneak in learning while playing.
Though this sand is edible and safe to eat, it isn’t going to taste any good! So while there is a high likelihood your young child and toddler will taste it, there is a slim chance they are likely to eat it.
Nonetheless, it is always advisable to keep a close watch on your child while they play.
Always use a tray or a play mat that’s easy to clean. Moon sand can be messy when kids play around with it. Especially due to the oily consistency, it can cause surfaces to become greasy when it comes in contact.
Note: If you want to make a larger amount of moon sand, you just have to use the 8:1 ratio for flour and oil. 8 cups of flour for every cup of oil.
Related: Also try our Homemade Bubble Solution Recipe to make the biggest, bounciest bubbles.
Benefits of Moon Sand Play
Molding for toddlers and young kids is therapeutic. There are several benefits that aid the development of young kids when they spend some joyful time with moon sand. Here are a few:
Playing with moon sand and other molding material from a young age is known to enhance their hand-eye coordination. Developing good hand-eye coordination will help your kids learn to read and write effectively.
It offers is an excellent tool for sensory play. Sensory play plays an important role in cognitive development and language development besides aiding motor skills.
Creativity – As this sand is easy to mould, it gives kids limitless opportunities to bring their imagination to life. Give them simple moulding tools or cookie cutters to let their imagination take a flight.
Quick Tip: Did you know humour aids engagement and leads to better learning outcomes? Make sure to crack some Silly Jokes for Kids to grab their attention and strengthen your bonding.
When kids work together as a group during such activity sessions, they embrace the team learning attitude, which will help them as they grow up to become professionals.
Building conversations to convey ideas, and listening to everyone’s opinion in an enjoyable environment is an effective way of building communication skills in youngsters.
Club this sensorial activity with Oreo Phases of Moon. It is an excellent activity to understand lunar cycle!
Difference Between Moon Sand and Kinetic Sand
Kinetic sand is another form of molding material that is quite often confused with moon sand. Although they have certain similarities, their textures and molding abilities are completely different.
Kinetic sand like the term “kinetic” suggests, is more fluid-like, compared to moon sand that has a more rubbery texture. In fact it is a non-Newtonian fluid that causes it to act like solid when pressure is applied, and a fluid when pressure is removed.
Due to this property, kinetic sand cannot retain its shape for more than a few seconds, unlike moon sand that retains its shape much better.
How to Store Moon Sand
After your kids are done using the sand, make sure you store it away in an air tight container or bag. You can use a ziplock bag and keep it in a cool and dry place.
This way, you should be able to extend its lifetime to about 2 months. For the edible version, store it in a fridge to ensure it still is taste-safe for your kids. And we suggest not using it beyond a day.
In case is it dries out and loses its moldability a little bit, add some water or baby oil (based on which recipe you’ve used) to help it regain its right consistency.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Moon sand is quick to make. Whatever recipe you choose, it takes under 15 minutes to make moon sand at home and can be played with right away!
Homemade Moon Sand when stored properly lasts really long. You can easily use the same batch for nearly 60 days. That said, it really depends how well it is stored.
For the edible version of Moon Sand, we recommend not using it beyond a day.
Yes, you can totally replace coconut oil with vegetable oil or any other oil of your choice!
Yes! You can add your choice of essential oils to your moon sand along with the oil before mixing it. Try using mild, child-safe essential oils like Rose, Sandalwood, Lavender or Sweet Orange.
Conclusion
If your kids spend the majority of their leisure time doing passive activities like video gaming, watching cartoons, or playing on their iPads, then you should try giving them moon sand for a change.
It is really simple to make, and brings in some wonderful physical and mental benefits to your kids.