Boredom Buster

 

Got some cranky little ones around?  Here's something fun to do when they tire of swimming at the pool.  It would also be great for VBS, at a party, or for a classroom or Sunday School class.

How To Make Your Own Colored Sand

Here's what you need:

*Large bucket of sidewalk chalk
*Salt

Here's what you do:

Using plastic containers, take one piece of chalk and pour about a cup of salt over it.  With your fingers, roll and rub the chalk into the salt.  Eventually, the chalk turns into colored sand.  Experiment with 2 pieces of chalk for darker colors, more salt to lighten colors, etc.  We used the bottoms of old milk jugs and poured the extra into ziploc bags.  But if you're the more tidy and organized type, you could also buy ziploc or tupperware style containers to make and store your colored sand in.

Tip:  
I found the best bang for your buck for sidewalk chalk was at Michael's for $4.  Use one of their 40% off coupons, even better.  Best price I found for salt was forty cents (!!!) at the Dollar General.  Just to help you estimate, 1 container of salt will fill one large bottle.  Or, you can buy one container of salt per color of chalk and have plenty of extra made for future projects.

How To Make Layered Sand Art

You need:

*Funnel

*Plastic bottles with lids

*DIY colored sand

*Small measuring scoops

Here's how:

Using the scoop (the extras from  powdered oxy clean work well), add colored sand to the clear plastic bottle, layering as much or as little as the child likes. Each child's will be different as they decide what colors to use where.  Fill to the top and screw on the plastic lid.  Be careful to keep the bottle upright, as shaking it or turning it from side to side will mix all the colors and ruin the layered effect.  Kids can then add stickers, labels, tags, ribbons, etc. to their bottle if they want to!  Any plastic bottle will work and kids can experiment with different shapes and sizes.  Basically, just use whatever is in the recycling bin...once you've washed & dried it, of course.

You can easily fill an afternoon just making the sand, and the next afternoon making the bottles.  My kids were easily occupied for an hour or more rolling chalk into salt.  Cousins and grandparents got in on the action too, and we took pics of all the fun we were having! Only, now I can't find them.  Which brings me to this request, please don't judge the quick Iphone pic.  Sometimes, that's all I've got around.  Actually, I just couldn't find the first pics we took of this project and today, I was just too lazy to get the big camera and go through all the fancy editing.  But!!  This is a super fun activity and I wanted to share - So....enjoy!