#1 Activity – Sand Play
My son who is three and half years old loves to play with sand. I have seen many children who loves to play with sand. Forget children, when at beach, adults play with sand, make castle, caves etc, just like children. We just cannot blame children who love to play with sand 🙂
Initially, I took my son to park to play with mud/sand. But I was constantly worried about his hygiene. And children have the habit of putting everything into their mouth…would drive me crazy. I also checked the artificial sand, but I was not convinced, as I always worried about what goes into his mouth.
What are the benefits of playing with sand?
- The coarse touch of the sand helps to develop sense of touch
- Helps to develop fine motor skills
- Helps to enhance eye & hand coordination
- Helps to explore their imagination
- And they just enjoy playing with sand 🙂
My son loves all the construction vehicles. He takes digger toy (construction vehicle), scoop sand with digger bucket and go further away and dump it. All this mud play helps to develop the above skills.
After experimenting with many options at home, I finally found a cereal grain that provides the consistency of sand and its totally ok to put it in mouth… 🙂
Fine broken wheat/Dalia:
I guess everyone will have broken wheat in their kitchen counter. I had got fine broken wheat to make some dish for myself, as its very good for diabetes. Suddenly, one fine day, as my son was pestering me to take him to park, and I was cooking something random with broken wheat, just like that, I gave my son a bowl full of broken wheat to play. He was soooo happy that I gave him sand to play.
Fine broken wheat has the same consistency as sand. It has the same coarseness and gooeyness as the sand in the beach. Broken wheat, its VERY ORGANIC and there is no fear of child shoving it in mouth. Even if baby eats broken wheat, it is no harm. By mixing water with dalia, children can make castle with beach toys.
I have made a sand play area for him and I have kept all the toys – such as shovel, rake, beach toys, construction vehicle toys and sand(broken wheat) to play. He plays in that area for almost an hour.
After they play, you can just store the broken wheat in a container and give the same to play next time. But before giving it next time, you can slightly fry in a pan, more of a sanitising measure.
No preservatives, no worries about consumption.
Even parents can explore and have fun playing with sand at home 🙂
What are you waiting for…buy dalia (which is not at all expensive, when compared to artificial sand) and has lot of benefits for your child.
Happy sand playing!!!
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