2 1/2 years old

Sand Play

08:30

We've finally got Ethan a sand box of his very own!  I looked around at quite a few different, often more expensive ones, but I ended up going for this little one from Tesco, that was only £15.  It's working well for us for now, and I figure that if it only lasts one summer that's ok as we'll probably be moving by next summer anyway.  I did consider getting one that sits on the ground, but then I decided that he would obviously sit in it, which would be fun, but it would bring a lot more sand into the house!  We'll just have to go to the beach if he wants to sit in the sand.



He is loving having his very own sandbox at home!  We've got plenty of beach toys that he can use in there, and a few dump trucks that he likes to fill with sand and drive around.  We also have these fantastic alphabet sand moulds from Learning Resources (they come in uppercase and lowercase) that we were given to review.  I love these, we have just started looking at letters together and trying to learn their sounds, so it's great to be able to extend that learning to other areas of our play.  First we just threw a bunch of the letters in and made their shapes in the sand, I would tell him the letter name and the sound, and we would trace over the sand shape with our fingers.  



Another activity that we tried is to take one letter at a time to focus on, to make that shape over and over again in the sand, and then to find things that begin with that letter to play with alongside it in the sandbox.  For example, we used the letter 'B' then found a bucket, a ball, a boy, a bat, a block, a bear, a bike, etc.  We also talked about other things that start with a 'b' sound but that we couldn't put in the sandbox (like bread, a balloon, etc).  Of course we also spelled out his name in the sand, he's able to say the letters that spell his name, so we point at them one at a time as he says them.



Learning Through Play

Communication, Language and Literacy
  • letter recognition
  • phonics sounds
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
  • sensory play
Physical Development
  • fine motor control

* This is a review post, we were sent the alphabet sand moulds from Learning Resources to try out and to write an honest review *

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