On the internet and in toy shops I suddenly came across it everywhere: play sand, kinetic sand, super sand, magic sand. Because there was so much variety, I hesitated for a long time about what to do, but then I came across a set of sample pots at Toys42Hands with which we could see which one was the best. After we had tested them thoroughly, the conclusion was that the kinetic sand from RelevantPlay was the best here, so I bought a box of 1 kg, together with the inflatable sandbox and the baker's trio. Lotte is crazy about making and decorating cakes.

Last week the package arrived and it was an instant success! It has been played with for hours in a few days and that could have been even more if we had not had to eat and sleep every now and then...

On Wednesday afternoon I blew up the sandbox, put the sand in it, added the cake molds and, to decorate the cakes, also added flat glass beads in a number of colors.

It was an immediate success. Lotte immediately started to 'knead the dough' enthusiastically, to make cakes and to test the different shapes. I also joined in for a while (I couldn't resist the temptation) and started to decorate the cakes with the glass beads. Of course Lotte wanted that too and she made beautiful cakes. With the plastic knife and the cake server from the baker's trio she cut off pieces of cake and they were proudly offered to me. And of course I enjoyed playing with them!

What she also really enjoyed doing was hiding the glass beads in piles of sand and then sifting them out with her fingers.

After an hour and a half of wonderful play, unfortunately the place had to be cleared away because we needed the table to eat, but otherwise she would have easily continued playing for a long time.

Two days later, on the free Friday afternoon, she knew immediately what she wanted to do: bake cakes with the 'indoor sand' again. And this time she had decided that the Playmobil figures could join in too. Because I didn't really like that because of the hinged parts, the Barbapapa figures were allowed to play instead. I had also brought out the goldminer's set and Lotte had taken the plastic ice cream cones and ice cream scoop from her shop.

First she baked lots of cakes and ice creams and presented them to the Barbapapa family. Later we also got some cookie cutters to make delicious cookies and of course decorated them with glass beads.

Then she thought that she could also bury the Barbapapa figures in the sand and hide them in the containers and tubes of the goldminer's set.

This time too, after more than an hour and a half, the cleaning was done with a fresh reluctance.

By the way, cleaning up goes very well with the kinetic sand. Although some things sometimes go next to the sandbox, they are easy to pick up. If you take a lump of sand, you can use it to pick up the rest: small lumps and crumbs then automatically move towards the larger lump. Even on our gravel floor, where everything normally disappears between the small stones, you can pick up the lumps well without all the small crumbs falling off and disappearing into the floor. And on the table, you simply rub everything towards each other and you can pick it up in one go without any effort.

If you want to bake cakes and cookies at home with kinetic sand, then one warning: I also took a few silicone cupcake molds, but apparently you can't use those with kinetic sand! With all the other molds, the sand comes off without any problem, but with the silicone molds it just won't come off. No matter how hard I rubbed, it just stuck more. In the end, I rinsed the molds under the tap, which I thought was a shame because of the sand that was still stuck to them, but it was the only way to get them clean again.

If you don't have glass beads, you can of course use all sorts of other things to decorate the cakes: beads, buttons, straws that you cut into pieces to make candles, game counters or chips, coloured matchsticks or ice cream sticks and so on.