Indoor sandpit. any ideas on sand substitute?

chaliepud

Careful with the magic maize as when it is wet it stains!

purplepurple

My two could spend hours just pouring dried split peas or lentils from one cup to another... or filling up fairy cake cases with them.... or dried macaroni was ace too.... plus give them a piece of string and they could practice their threading too.... dried pasta as sallypurple said is great and if you get the value stuff, it's cheap enough just to toss into the compost bin once your kids have finished with it. You can also cook it and add food colouring to make it interesting... my son still loves playing with cold cooked pasta... when he was little I had to colour it blue because that was the only colour he didn't want to eat!
I also used to make "gloop" from corn flour and water... it's a lovely squishy consistency, you can see where it has been spilt(!) and it's easy to wash off most things.....

Alleycat

Or shredded paper is another fun one. I know you can't build sandcastles with it, but its great fun to play with.

My dd is 10.5 months and this is what we were up to this morning! Got lots of bits everywhere, but nothing a quick whizz over with the hoover won't pick up. She was putting it in her stacking boxes and pouring it over my head!

Otherwise at nursery they use shaving foam, cooked pasta and porridge (!) for messy play. They sometimes dye the porridge different colours as well and the little ones love mixing the colours together. They've got a fab photo on the wall of all the babies sat in an empty sandpit covered in the stuff! Not been tempted to try that one at home yet, I can just imagine the mess. Maybe in the summer if I'm feeling brave....or at MIL's house!!

troll35

We do sand and water play indoors on a small scale using cat litter trays (I don't have cats so they are perfectly clean!!). You can put them on the floor on a plastic sheet and a large towel. The towel not only mops up the water but it also stops the sand from spreading too far. I find the litter trays ideal because they hold enough for little hands but not so much as to make a huge mess. We use empty yoghurt pots to make sand castles and plastic spoons as spades.

In addition to other suggested fillers (rice, pasta, cereals etc) we used a generous squirt of baby lotion this week and the children made patterns with their fingers, hands, playdough tools etc.