sensory materials - coloured sand

As the preschool I work at, Filosofiska, sponsors children to attend school, linked with Filosofiska in Nepal, I think often about how they could do the same sort of activities as us over there...

I believe that sensory play offers children a gateway to all sorts of learning - and many of the sensory activities we have at preschool use food of one sort or another - flour, salt and oil to make play-dough, coloured rice, oats, beans, pasta etc etc - but since for many children in Nepal food is not something to play with, as there is not ENOUGH food... so I have been on a mission to work out sensory materials that can be found, but are STILL a little different and tickle the senses!

Today we were at the beach and Michael, my son, was delighting in the the sand with his bare feet - so we collected some to take home with us. I sifted the sand to get rid of the small stones and other rubbish... I then used some food colouring to create red, green and black sand - as you see the original sand was quite grey.

The sand could be used on trays with fingers or brushes to create letters and pictures just like this image of salt, coloured green, mixed with glitter...

 It could also be used to create art by gluing it onto card or paper, or just in a big box with cars and trucks, or figures of animals or dinosaurs - hiding the figures, making tracks etc etc... or mixed with water to create a kind of coloured mud - and experiments to see how the colour would change as the sands got mixed together. It did not require so much food colouring to create a difference...

So should I ever find myself on my way to Nepal, or any other country where foodstuffs are simply not an option as sensory materials - I will remember to pack a variety of food-colouring with me...