Sand art, although conceptually simple, can be challenging for young children. A steady hand is required if the layers of the sand art are to remain intact. It can be very tempting for little ones to want to shake up the jars to see what will happen with all of the colors. Fortunately, there are solutions to virtually any obstacle associated with sand art and making it child friendly. In the paragraphs that follow, you will be able to read about some ideas that will help to make sand art easier, more fun and a memorable experience.
Make it bigger
Creating varying layers of sand art requires a lot of patience, self control and a steady hand. The slightest bump or spill can dramatically change the look of the entire sand art project. This is because the sand granules are so small that they can move their way into the smallest of crevices within whatever jar they are in. In order to combat this problem, all that you need to do is to make the pieces in the jar bigger. This means using something other than sand to create sand art. For example, you can make a multi-colored and layered jar by using jelly beans or jewels instead of sand. If the inclusion of sand is important because the sand happens to come from a beach that you visited, why not consider collecting something other than sand, like seashells, next time.
Making memories
Sometimes sand art is boring. Not every kid is going to jump at the opportunity to meticulously layer sand into a jar. But if you add some meaning to the activity that is to take place, the task suddenly becomes more exciting. For example, you can collect sand from your travels and make a sand art piece that represents your summer vacation or the business trips that dad has been on and brought you back sand from. You could even collect small bags of sand from a variety of different places and combine them in a pot that you can use to grow a plant out of. There are no rules that state that sand art is only sand art when it is layered and grouped by its color.
Sand as an art tool
Not all sand art has to be in a jar, there are many different techniques for making sand art on paper or even on three-dimensional objects. For example, you can use glue, paper and sand to make a sand picture. All that you do is draw the picture on the piece of paper, fill small sections of the paper with a thin layer of glue and pour the sand over the glue. That portion of the paper will remain covered with one specific color of sand and you can then apply glue and another color of sand to another portion of the drawing. If you can cover something with glitter, you can cover that thing with colored sand. You can make a shoe box into a treasure box (or any other type of box that sounds exciting to you) by covering it with colored sand.