Halloween Activity for Kids: Playing and Creating with Sand and Glass Gems

Welcome back to the second Tuesday of our Halloween Invitation to Play Series! This week we’re sharing a creative Halloween themed activity that involves playing and creating with sand and glass gems! (If you missed last week’s Halloween invitation, be sure to check out our fine motor Halloween activity.)

Welcome to our Halloween Invitation to Play series put on by myself and 5 other super kid bloggers! We’ll be sharing some creative Halloween themed activities to inspire your children to play and create! (Be sure to check out what my 5 fabulous co-hosts are sharing by clicking on the links at the end of this post.)

Halloween Activity: Playing and Creating with Sand 

This Halloween invitation to play and create was very simple to set up and required very few materials. (It was inspired by our salt art activity. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already seen it!) It’s also perfect for just about any age. Both my kids (ages 2 and 5) had tons of fun with this one! Do not leave your young child unattended with this activity as it does contain items that can be small enough to be mouthed. (This post contains affiliate links to Amazon.)

Materials

• Surface to play and create on. (We used some inexpensive orange and black plastic plates and placed them on some tree stumps. But you could also use cookie sheets or a table top.) 
• Black sand and orange sand
• Squeeze bottles
• Black and orange colored glass gems

Setting  Up

I poured a thin layer of sand onto each plastic plate and then placed a squeeze bottle with contrasting sand next to the plate. I also scattered the glass gems around the outside of the plate. 

Ways Children Might Use the Materials

The first thing both my kids did was to use the squeeze bottles to draw lines and make sand piles on the plates. 

Lucy liked mixing the sand with her hand after she poured it. 

Theo’s favorite thing to do was just make piles and piles of black sand all over his plate. See his concentration!

Both kids also used the glass gems to make designs and pictures. Lucy made a face.

Theo made a design with his glass gems.

Lucy was also excited to put the used sand back into the squeeze bottles, “I’m going to see what it looks like when the orange and black sand is mixed up!”

Tips

• If you have more than one child doing this activity, it helps to let them have their own creative space. Lucy and Theo both had their own areas to work in. I made sure they were near each other so they were able to share the materials. 
• Set this up somewhere where you don’t have to worry about a mess. It helps us to all have more fun when I’m not trying to contain materials and thinking about all the cleanup at the end.
• This activity really helped Theo with his colors. He can now add the word “black” to his color vocabulary!

 Don’t forget to stop by and see what fun Halloween invitations to play my other co-hosts are sharing today!  

Halloween Weaving by Fantastic Fun and Learning

Halloween Sticky Table Art by Fun-A-Day

Invitation to Paint by Nothing if Not Intentional

Pumpkin Railroad Building by Play Trains!

Spooky Mirrored Sand Play by Twodaloo

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