Indoor sandpit. any ideas on sand substitute?

scarface

I have bought my son a sand pit but with the cold weather he is hardly using it. Does anyone have any experience with making an indoor sandpit. Obviously I wouldn't use sand but I was thinking something like little styrofoam balls that you get in packaging but then they are quite dangerous if he swallows them. Are there edible alternatives??

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

honey

The pre-school that my daughter goes to has a pit of rice grains (uncooked )

Sometimes they have it coloured too - I'm guessing this is just a drop or two of food colouring stirred in.

I can't think of an edible option though

KizzyK_2

What about the bigger plastic ball pit balls (about the size of tennis balls)?

Jay-Jay_4

KizzyK wrote:

What about the bigger plastic ball pit balls (about the size of tennis balls)?

Oh yes, much better alternative. You can buy them at the ELC and Argos.

Polystyrene balls would end up all over your house (ever had a bean bag burst on you? )

scarface

The only problem with something the size of tennis balls is that it doesn't raelly replicate sand very well. His spade and bucket etc would be pretty useless. Rice sounds like not a bad idea, we have wooden floorboards everywhere anyway. I would still prefer something slightly bigger.

Thanks for the advice so far

ribenagirl

I might be wrong on this, but doesn't rice have the potential to be a really bad idea?

You don't mention how old your son is, but I'm assuming from the polystyrene balls that he's not quite old enough to be completely trusted NOT to put whatever is in the sandpit in his mouth - I'm just thinking, although rice would be nice and easy to hoover up, rice swells up when it gets wet and can be very painful if it's in your tummy when it does it - if your son happened to eat some of the rice things could get quite uncomfortable

If you put the sandpit on a big polystyrene sheet, would it be okay to use sand then - the mess would be easier to clear up?

kabie

I've seen soil used before. How about using it as a playdough area, or for water play? Or you could use lentils or split peas although that's pretty much the same as the rice idea.
Or there's always gloop, it's great stuff runny 'til you touch it then it goes kind of solid (finding it hard to explain)

Here's a link about how to make it:
http://www.fun-baby-games-online.com/gloop-recipe.html

scarface

Yes rice would be a very bad idea. My son is only just 1 year old so he is putting everything in his mouth. sand would also be a nightmare as his idea of fun is to chuck everything out of the sandpit. A friend has told me that he has seen soemthing that looks like polystyrene wotsits but are actually made from maize. Just searched them on google and come up with nothing

sallypurple

Hi,

I run a pre-school and we use all sorts of things in our play pit. If your child is over 2 1/2 he should be able to understand it is for playing with not eating.

We use;
Cereals - rice krispies and cornflakes
rice, pulses - NOT red kidney Beans
Pasta comes in all sorts of exciting shapes
Shaving foam
Flour
compost
glitter
Tinsel
Play maize - this is often used as packing material - you can tell when it is the safe non-polystyrene variety because it dissolves in water! Otherwise you can buy it in Early Learning Centre.

Put a variety of things to help him experiment with, pots, scoops, measuring cups and spoons.

Also encourage him to make patterns in it with his fingers, combs chopsticks.

Have fun :snow_laug

scarface

Thank you very much Sally Purple. Just found it at elc.

http://www.elc.co.uk/toy-31421

Looks great as well as I was imagining something quite plain in colour

mummytofour

The maze will squash down and become flat, also the bags that they sell it in are small whne you want to fill up a sand pit.

I love water with starts in, loads of fun