I’ve often thought living right on the beach would be a dream come true but I think if that were the case, I wouldn’t appreciate it as much as I do! I am surrounded by many beautiful beaches in Seattle but I’ve been daydreaming about the soft sandy beaches of California and taking my little girl to see them for the first time! We brought a bit of the beach to us and made our own sand!
THE MATERIALS
// makes about 2 cups //
// this is a ‘supervision required’ activity //
1 sleeve graham crackers
1 cup oatmeal
Microwave safe bowl
Food thermometer
Food processor or blender
Plastic container or bowl to hold sand
Large sheet or towel
Miscellaneous sand toys
THE PROCESS
Heat treat the oatmeal to kill any bacteria. To do this, place oatmeal in a microwave safe bowl. Heat it in the microwave in 30 second increments (stirring each time) until it reaches 165 degrees F.
Allow the oatmeal to cool, then place in a food processor or blender. Add half of the sleeve of graham crackers and blend until sand like.
Add the rest of the graham crackers and blend!
There you have it! Edible sand! You can blend it as fine or “crunchy” as you’d like!
Pour sand into plastic tub or bowl.
For the playing set up, I laid out an old white sheet on our deck to make clean up easy and gathered miscellaneous measuring cups, bowls, and spoons from my kitchen. There are so many options but my daughter has been in a mixing, filling, and dumping phase so this worked well for us.
The best part is that this sand is delicious (I even snuck a bit). My daughter started eating it about 25 minutes into play time because snack time was coming up. I threw in a handful of blueberries and let her search for them. It was a hit!
Enjoy a little bit of the beach at home!
