Homemade Moon Sand

The title of this is “Homemade Moon Sand”, but what I made was more like mud.  It was my fault, though.  I will tell you more about that in a second.  I searched the internet to find a recipe for moon sand, because I am too cheap to pay $7-20 for a sand in a Rubbermaid container.  I was ecstatic when I found it.  I have been thinking about making it for a month now.  Maybe my expectations were just a little too high.

Here is what you need: 6 cups of play sand, 3 cups of cornstarch, and 1 1/2 cups of water.  {The picture shows 2 boxes of cornstarch, but one 16 oz. box has a little over 3 cups and will be plenty.}

 

Mix the cornstarch and play sand together.  Then add the water.  Now I was told on the internet that you could make it colored by adding Kool Aid to the sand and cornstarch before adding the water.  My son picked green...didn’t work well at all.  Do you know what you get with brown sand and green Kool Aid mix?  You get the color of baby poop.  Yes, I said it, baby poop!  If you are going to try this, I suggest purple (grape) or red (cherry), something that will overpower the brown sand more than green.

  

My son was stirring the mixture as I was adding the water.  I made the mistake of thinking it looked too dry, so I added more water.  I would not suggest this.  I made Moon Mud.  I was soooo very disappointed, but my son wasn’t.  He said it was even more fun than the Moon Sand at his preschool.  I put it on a cookie sheet and let him play with it.  He had a ton of fun!  The cornstarch in the mixture made it easy to play with and kept it together pretty well.

 

After a few days, the Moon Mud became more like Moon Sand, because it will dry out a little.  You will need to keep it in an airtight container and freshen it with water every now and then.  The more my son plays with it, the less disappointed I am with the outcome of the mixture.  It wasn’t a smashing success like the Gooey Geyser Goo, but it was a success none the less.  I would suggest you try it, but don’t add extra water (my son liked the extra water version better, though) and use different Kool Aid to color.  This was a lot cheaper than buying the actual moon sand and it cost me about $4 to make a whole batch.  The pictures above of my son playing with it on a cookie sheet is only about 1/3 of a batch.  So you are getting a good price for your money.  To make it look really good (but increases the cost) use Crayola Colored Play Sand instead of trying to color regular sand with Kool Aid.  Try it.

This post was linked with others on Friday Favorites at Daily Dwelling and Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.