How to Make Homemade Super Sand (Cheap & Easy!)

First a secret. We’re going to use salt instead of sand to make our super easy, super cheap super sand.

Yeah, I know. We’re rule breakers. It’s the way we roll. It’s also the way kids learn best–by playing with the ‘rules’ or ‘instructions’ and making things their own way.

Hang on… here we go!

Super Sand Instructions

You’ll need a pile of salt. And a bunch of food colouring. Also a spoon and a plastic bag. One bag per colour.

That’s right. We’re measuring with care like we’re sending a shuttle to the moon.

All righty. Space-folks. For every tablespoon of salt you will need about 1-2 drops of food colouring. The brighter the colour, the more food colouring. Funny how that works.

Mix colours. Go wild.

Oh, but first, take the salt out of the shaker and dump it into the plastic bag. Add food colouring. Stir with a spoon, or simply shake the bag. (Make sure you close it first.)

Let it dry for a day or two.

Now for the fun part.

Eat it.

Play with it.

Run it between your fingers and say “ooooooh… ahhhhhh.”

Arrange it in a container.

In the above photo, coloured salt (super sand!) was layered into the baby jar–right up to the top! Then with a toothpick, my daughter poked the sand making the cool downward bits.

When you are satisfied with the look, screw the lid on the jar and tie or glue ribbon around the top to make it look lovely and glam!

OR: Make a picture! Spread glue on a piece of paper or thin cardboard. Apply different coloured super sand to different parts of the glue to make a picture. Lovely! Shall we frame it?

You know what? I think this would make a lovely homemade gift or birthday party favour. What do you say?

Have you made super sand? What are your recipe secrets? What do you like to do with it?

Want to shout about it? Tweet this: I found a super easy, super cheap, super sand recipe for my kids!