Homemade moon sand (another fun summer project)

The girls have been dying to try this Homemade Moon Sand recipe that I found on Pinterest, so yesterday we gave it a whirl and found that it was fun and easy! (Oh, before I forget, I added Kid Projects to the nav bar at the top of this site if anyone needs ideas like this one.)

Directions: combine 4 cups of sand, 2 cups of cornstarch, and 1 cup of water, then play using your hands, cookie cutters, small kitchen utensils, or anything else you can dream up. Add more water, a little bit at a time, to get the consistency you want.

That’s it! Really. The stuff was great.

It behaved like doughy wet sand that holds its shape really well. The girls really liked using cookie cutters (just pack the moon sand in the cookie cutter and smooth the top, then poke it out of the cookie cutter). They played with it for almost two hours (!!!). And when it got a little dry from being loved half to death, we just added a little more water and kept going.

If you put it out in the sun, it dries whitish and kind of hard too (this discovery was a happy accident that elicited a little bit of squealing).

This project would best be done outside, but it was about 8000 degrees in the sun yesterday, and I couldn’t take it. So we put some containment towels on the kitchen floor and went to town with the moon sand in the nice cool house. Cleanup actually wasn’t too bad at all, just sent the girls outside to hose down their hands and the implements (you know they enjoyed that) and wiped down the art table and swept up any stray sand while they were hosing. Now that I’ve seen how easy the project was, I’d let the kids do it on their own on the outside picnic table and there wouldn’t be a lick of cleanup.

Happy crafting!