Family Childhood And Parenthood Concept Happy Mother And Little Baby Girl With Sand Toys Playing In Sandbox At Summer Playground Happy Mother And

What are the Benefits of Sand Play?

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Have you ever let your child explore playing in the sand before? Or are you one of the many parents who would get distressed seeing their kids got all messed up with sand and water? If it is the latter, I’d love to share with you some of my findings regarding children playing in the sand.

According to the article, “Making The Most of Sand Play” [1]http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=62, the writer Sandra Crosser Ph.D. states that there are tremendous benefits for children to play in the sand. It is a superb avenue for kids to develop cognitive, physical, and social skills. With the right tools and activities, parents can even introduce mathematical concepts and perform scientific experiments through sand plays.

Sand Play Enhances Physical Development

Rather than laying down to play the digital devices, sands play is an exceptional way for kids to practice using different parts of their muscles. By pouring, digging, scooping, and sifting sands, it utilities the muscles of their hands and arms, especially when they are carrying the bucket of sand and water.

Since sand play involves working with many tiny details, for instance, building a sandcastle, it can bring significant benefits to a child’s hand-eye coordination.

Open-Medium that Promotes Creative Learning

As a parent, I often find that our culture is too rigid. Our children’s learning experience and the toys they have are explicitly pre-programmed on what they ought to do. Without the practice to think outside the box, many children do not know how to solve a problem unless they are provided with specific instructions.

Sand is an open-ended medium. It can take into unlimited different forms and shapes. If you ask two children to solve a math question separately, they probably will come up with the same formal answer. On the other hand, if you ask two kids to build their sandcastle, I’m sure they would not be identical.

If a child has not experienced playing with sand before, I would first go over some safety rules with them. (This would be covered later in this article), then I would encourage them to play freestyle entirely. With just a scoop, a bucket of water and a sandbox, children can practice using their creativity and imagination to construct things that they like.

After a few times, when they become more comfortable with the sands play, I would introduce different exercises for them to explore. Although some directions are given to the child, I still encourage not to set too many unnecessary rules to them. Focus on the learning experience, and not just the rights and wrongs. After all, our goal is for the child to explore in a less-restrictive environment.

Sand Play can Improve a Child’s Focus and Attention Span

Boy Drawing In Sand

Many children have low-attention span problem. I’m sure some of the parents would get pretty frustrated when trying to teach them homework. As you are instructing your child to write the letter “S,” it always ends up looking like the letter “Z.” You told them a million times to start at the top, go down, from right to left. However, your child just kept fidgeting with his pencil. He looks at everywhere except on his workbook until you lose your patience. Sounds similar?

According to an article from parents.com, “How to Improve Attention Spans” [2]http://www.parents.com/kids/development/intellectual/how-to-improve-attention-spans/ “How much attention a child gives a task also depends on whether he is enjoying himself. Many children struggle when asked to do something they don’t want to do.”

However, with some creativity from the parents, we could make their teaching experience a lot more fun and enjoyable. Rather than writing bluntly on papers, you could teach your child to write on the sand with tiny tree branch instead. To add more fun, you could use numerous colors of sands for different letters.

The teaching does not limit to just writing words. You could also teach your kids about the different road signs such as “Stop,” “Yield.” This activity would be valuable as some kids would walk to school or browse around the neighborhood when they get older.

Introduce Math and Science Concepts With Playing Sand

There are many applications where parents can introduce simple mathematics concepts to their child through playing sand. For a small child, they can get to know the idea of “little,” “more,” “light” and “heavy.” You can also count together with them how many scoops of sand could fill out a bucket. For an older child, they could even do a more precise job a measuring cup.

Testing with a balance scale is also a good exercise. Just put an object on one side of the scale, and a measuring cup on the other one. Have the child to continue adding sands to the measuring cup until the balance is even. This way, the child can weigh the different objects in terms of units of sands.

Playing treasure hunt with a magnet is another exciting game. First, you find objects that could be attracted by magnets. Keys could be a potential candidate, but it subjects to what is it made of. Once you confirm a magnet can draw the object, then you could hide it with a thin layer of sand within the sandbox or sand table.

Then you provide a magnet to the child and ask them to search for it. However, I don’t suggest to hide anything shape. Only use items that are no longer important, after all, there is no guaranteed your child can successfully locate it for you.

Other games such as creating a sand river stream, using a pulley to lift a bucket of sand are also great explorations for children to have fun while learning. Here is the list of things I think it’s good for sand play.

Playing Sand in Group Develops Social Skills:

When multiple of kids are having the sand play together, I wouldn’t recommend giving each one their own set of tools. With limited tools and resources, it trained them to develop the social skills of sharing, compromising and negotiating. After all, if each NBA player would have their own basketball on the court, what fun would that be?

Of course, the number of sharing tools should be reasonable. You can’t have twenty kids sharing only one scoop. I find that 1:2 or 1:3 ratio would be a good fit.

Promote Artistic Development:

Playing in the sand does not only promote math and science exploration, with great imagination and creative ideas, but this could also be an open door for a future little artist.
When your child is building a sand castle, you may suggest decorating with it with items that can be found in your backyard. For instance, rocks, leaves, branches, flowers.

Below is an incredible performance from the sand artist, Charlene Lanzel. I’m amazed at how one could tell a story through such a beautiful sand demonstration.

Sands Allow a Child to Express Their Emotion Freely

Sandplay could be an efficient way for children to express their feeling. According to the article, Sand Tray Therapy from GoodTherapy.org, sand has been used as part of a therapeutic treatment for many years. “Many children are unable to verbalize emotional states, particularly in the face of trauma, neglect, or abuse. The non-verbal nature of sandplay therapy and the familiar medium of sand can help children achieve feelings of comfort and security. With little instruction from the therapist, the child is free to play and develop his or her expression of situations.” [3]https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/sand-tray-sand-play-therapy

As parents, we should not solely focus on our child’s academic progress and physical development. Their mental health development is as equally important and should not be neglected. It is crucial to find a medium where they can freely express their emotions and share their thoughts.

Life Lesson Demonstration with Sands

We have discussed many benefits that sand play could bring to our children. However, I’m sure many parents do not realize it could also be used to your kids a life lesson. Here is a video how a professor uses sand and other unappealing items in demonstrating to his students a valuable life lesson.

Young children might not fully understand the metaphor in this video, but could be a meaningful lesson to learn in the years to come. It also serves a great reminder to us, as parents, we should prioritize the things that are important to us, which certainly should include spending quality time with our kids.

Safety Precaution & Cleaning

  • Before a child play in the sandbox, always check if there are any sharp items and dirt. If so, scoop them out.
  • Check if the sand would be too hot to be played with.
  • Always wash kids’ hands and bare feet after they play
  • Instruct children not to eat sand
  • Never throw sands toward others. Inhaling or having sands got into eyes could result in health issue
  • To keep out animals from turning a sandbox into their litter box, cover it when not in use
  • If the sand got wet during playtime, keep them dry by leaving the sandbox in direct sun to dry (the rays will help kill bacteria). Once again, remember to cover it back when the sand is dry.
  • Other reasonable precautions such as applying a suitable sunscreen, wear a hat, drink enough water and dress appropriately for the weather should also be exercised.

 

 

Disclaimer: This content of this website is for general information, and do not intend to provide any specific advice. Although I tried my best in providing accurate information, I cannot guarantee they are error-free. Information displayed on this website could be subjected to change. For any medical-related question, you should always consult with your family doctor. For safety or product related question, you should consult with the actual manufacturer.

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