Friday Group - Sand Play

Due to a shipping error that left us without a canvas, I interrupted our painting session and brought out the sensory bin filled with sand. A new friend, Hannah also joined us during group this week. We are happy to have some female energy to our boy heavy play sessions. Sebastien and I have been exploring sand together now for a couple of weeks and I find the sand so calming and soothing when we play in it together. Sand is used by many mental health professionals when working with young children because it is a creative medium that children can use to express themselves and with the right props recreate situations the child may be struggling with. Sand is also fun. You can dump, pat, sift, form, scoop, and pour it. Sand has endless possibilities. Theo, Max, and Bryce weren't too sure about the sand itself but found the wooden tools particularly interesting.

In true Theo style, he liked the handles on the wooden tools and carried them all around the play area. He did touch the sand a few times but wasn't too sure about it. Max checked out the tools in a similar fashion but preferred to throw them back into the sensory bin. You can see Max pick up some sand but he quickly let it fall back into the sensory bin. Both boys spent short periods of time with the sand but this is typical for a first exploration.

Bryce spent more time with the tools, practicing a stirring technique. He also used the tools to make sound. Toward the end of the video he uses the spoon to push the sand on the edge of the sensory bin. Sand allows for many ways to be explored... "the what happens if I" cause and effect experiments that go on inside a child's head have many possible outcomes.



The tools also pose interesting challenges to the children like, how do I hold this tool to get sand into it? Both Sebastien and Hannah try to figure this one out although it just looks like their intention is to simply move the sand. What you don't see is Sebastien moving his spoon over to dump out what he thought should be in his spoon into a bucket. Then toward the end Hannah opts to grab a tool that already has sand in it to touch and explore the sand inside.



As I watched the video I shot I was particularly interested in the children's vocalizations while playing with the sand. Watch as Sebastien and Hannah have something to say while playing with the sand. They are both completely engrossed in what they are doing.