Portable Sand Boxes, Sand Tables and Sand Tray Therapy

Product Review Sunday

Working as a nanny I love Portable Sand Trays and Little Sandboxes to use indoors or out any time of the year. Most children love the feeling of sand and using a sand table can provide hours of fun. I personally love using Moon Sand because it feels great and makes sculpting objects for kids easy.

Sand trays are also used by therapists as a way to allow children to express themselves in ways that is therapeutic. Sand tray therapy (also known as sandplay or The World Technique) was developed by Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld during the 1920s. Sand tray therapy was originally developed as a method of helping children articulate their emotions and experiences. As simple as this process might seem, sand tray therapy intervention has been practiced, studied, and diversified for over 70-years and involves many different components and theories.

Nannies and au pairs can enjoy playing the following games found on ehow.com with kids using sand tables or trays outside or indoors using a sand table or sand tray:

Letter Practice
Fill a tray with sand or use a sandbox to provide a tactile letter practice activity. Encourage the kids to practice writing letters in the sand with a finger. When the sand area is covered with letters, have the kids smooth out the surface with a hand and start over. Expand the activity to practice writing numbers, words and shapes in the sand. Have the kids write their names in the sand or draw a picture. Offer other implements, such as straws or pencils, for children to use when writing in the sand.

Sand Town
Use a large area of sand to create a sand town. Build mounds of sand to create hills in the town. Smooth out roads around the sand town. Add buildings using wet sand packed into a small bucket. Provide toy cars and plastic people. Encourage the kids to play in the sand town, using the cars to drive around and interacting with each other through plastic people figures. Scale down the sand town if only a small area of sand is available. I like using this Castle Sand Molding Set.

Sand Treasure Hunt
Hide several small objects in the sand play area. Select items that the chidlren can use in the sand after the treasure hunt is over, such as toy cars or seashells. Encourage the kids to dig through the sand to find the hidden objects. For a fun twist, create dinosaur bones from clay, allowing them to harden. Bury the dinosaur bones in the sand and send the kids on a dinosaur digging expedition.

Sand Patterns
Provide a variety of objects that the kids can use in the sand to create patterns. Ideas include feathers, combs, sticks, seashells and rocks. Have the kids press the objects into wet or dry sand. Encourage them to drag the items along in the sand to observe the resulting patterns.

Digging and Pouring
Gather household items to use with sand. Ideas include funnels, colanders, measuring cups and spoons. Let the kids experiment with these different objects and how the sand moves through them. Try this activity with both wet and dry sand, asking the kids to verbalize how the sand acted differently when the same items were used.

Portable Sand Tray