Kinetic sand - bring summer into your home
Author: Karen Mee
Mother
When I heard that kinetic sand is sand that is 'clean', I immediately became curious. No crunching grains between your toes, or even worse: on your sandwich. And therefore completely nice to play with indoors; the beach but then in the house! Due to a special addition, the grains stick together easily and it does not become a mess. Ideal for a mother like me who does not like dirty things and even more ideal for a child like mine with a slight fear of contamination.
Lin has a standing table. She can stand in it, strapped in nicely, and her arms are free to play. The table has a nice container where we put the sand. Lin is a fear of dirt, so she carefully puts her finger in. Apparently it feels good because both hands disappear in it very quickly. Before I know it, she throws a handful of sand on the floor. 'No, yuck Lin!' I say as I want to get the dustpan and brush. But then I realize that according to the instructions, it should be easier. I just grab the sand with my hand and indeed, without the dustpan and brush, I can neatly put all the sand back in the bowl. And it feels so good in my hand.
Together we test what we can do with the sand. With our cookie cutter we make all sorts of shapes. The shapes stay nicely in the sand. In our imagination we make a farm. The squares are the cows and the circles are the chickens. 'Tok tok tok,' the chickens slide through our farm.
Then we decide to build a haystack. 'High, very very high,' is my assignment. But with kinetic sand that is quite difficult. The sand sticks together nicely, but on top of each other works less well. All the towers I build slowly collapse. But fortunately slowly enough that Lin can knock them all over with a good whack. Great fun!
Another wonderful feeling is letting the sand fall on your hands. Like a kind of dry quicksand, it falls heavily around your hands. Nice and firm, yet soft. Lin's hands disappear completely under the sand, only to reappear with an unexpected movement. 'Tadaa!' Lin shouts.
After we have baked a few delicious sand pies, it is time to clean up. But secretly I sit on the couch in the evening with the bowl on my lap. For two hours I sit with my hands in the sand, digging. It is a really wonderful feeling and very relaxing. And by bringing sand into the house, I also feel like I am bringing a little bit of summer into the house.
