Sensory Play: Edible Sand Play Tray

With a few old bags of cereal (we all have those, right, or is it just our family?) you can create edible sand for littles to play with, touch, push around, and scoop. We used plain Cheerios for the sand, and added Leapin’ Lemurs (contains peanuts) Rice Krispies for extra texture. You can use anything that scoops, like cups, soup spoons or small ladles, for littles to interact with materials.

One mom’s feedback on this activity: “Success! He didn’t really play in the “sand” as much as just wanted to play with all of the tractors. But he sure did play with those tractors for 45 minutes! He would take one and run around the backyard, bring it back to the sand, grab another one and so on.”

Although the sand wasn’t the draw for this little, it may have been that the presentation of a toy in a different scenario made the toy more attractive! Either way, 45 minutes is a long time to keep a toddler engaged in an activity, so we definitely call this one a win!

Download a PDF of this activity.

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