Make Your Own Moon Sand, Dirt Cheap

Let me know how it goes Barb. And if you can improve on the recipe, please let us know. I'd love to find a way to keep it in a permanent 'wet' state.

I really thought the title was "How To Make Your Own Moon, Dirt Cheap". Maybe next year?

Thanks DJB, that's a great suggestion.

I dugg you. Really cool :)

I bought the real Moon Sand last year for my kids but it was so messy we ended up getting rid of it.

Maybe next summer I'll make them a new batch to use outside :)

Add it slowly. I suspect too much will be WAY too much, but I don't know enough to suggest proportions.

If my kids were younger, or old enough that I was a Grampa, I'd try it myself.

Let us know if you find a better recipe.

BTW: I just found you via BoingBoing, and have you bookmarked for regular visits.

it has many of the same properties as the homemade play-doh. Although I'm not sure of the absorbancy of a grain of sand, I'd hate to get the kool-aid coloring everywhere. It's a pain to remove.

This sounds great. How long do you think this stuff will last? Would some kind of preservative help? If I was using it for a pre-school playgroup I could see it getting a bit smelly and unhygienic. Perhaps a few drops of Milton fluid or something like sodium bicarbonate would keep the starch fresh.

Thanks

Okay, I'm so out of it, do you all let your kids play with sand in the house? Yikes. Playdoh is bad enough. My 3-year-old grandnephew can make an incredible mess with whatever he has in his hands in less than 5 minutes. I love the textures and colors of that stuff, though, ha-ha. At least I can keep him occupied in one place that way for maybe a half hour or so. I bought the kid and his brother a sandbox last summer, that's been fun. Will have to copy these instructions for the niece (which she will probably laugh at and pitch, tee-hee).

My daughter's teacher made this in her pre-school class. She used mineral oil or baby oil instead of water. It stayed wet, even in a bin sitting outside in the California sun. When I made it at home I added a couple drops of ti tree oil to kill some germs.

if you want to color this, you have to do it before you add the oil, otherwise it won't absorb.

Its the real thing? Obviously, unless you can get the ingredients for moon sand, you cant make ACTUAL moonsand :D

Im going to try this with my kids. I dont mind having to add some water...THANKS!

...not really like Moon Sand. I made this today with my daughter. It is a lot gloppier and doesn't hold it's shape like the real stuff. But, it is cheap, fun and easy to clean up- it glops together easily and when it dries it is just cornstarch and sand, so it is easy to sweep or vacuum.

I made this yesterday with my nephew and it was really watery. I am thinking it might have been because the sand was damp to start with (we bought it was homedepo). when ever I buy play sand it is always damp when I take it out of the bag. we just added more sand and more corn starch untill it got to the right consistancy and now he is having a ball with it. He played with it for hours yesterday and has been playing with now for over 2 hours he has his trucks in it and dosnt want to stop. I am going to try and spray it with some cooking spray or put some vegtable oil in it when it needs to be moisened I remember being younger and makeing the sand that floats and thats how we made it we maybe it will work I will let you guys know how it turns out after I do it. Thanks for alot of fun!

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Can you use real sand instead of play sand? Just a thought i'd like to show my boyfriends neices how to do it. Maybe it could bring us closer if i'm doing something fun with them.

Great idea, I haven't tried it yet. We got some moon sand from grandma and I was trying to figure out what it is exactly- I don't think there's any actual sand in "moon sand". It's messy but relatively easy to clean up. The kids were tracking it every where, so it's band for outside use only now.
I think this is worth a try because although moon sand last "forever" it gets nasty, bits of all kinds of lint and hair and dirt extra get in it causing it to look, well yucky. You need to throw it out and get more after playing with it for a little while, so it would get pricey. Also I was thinking of my son's preschool and filling a whole preschool sized water table with moon sand would be very expensive and unpractical.

I am going to try this tomorrow for a kids day at the park, I was thinking of adding powdered tempura paint to add color to it.

Oobleck comes from a Dr. Seus story that involves a kingdom being destroyed due to Oobleck's stickyness :-)

This is from the Moon Sand faq site:

Can Moon Sand get wet?
Moon Sand repels water, and can actually float! This enables the artist to incorporate water into their sculpture without any damage. Use water in any creative way you want like creating a moat around your castle creations.

http://www.moonsandkits.com/faq.php

just add 1tbsp + 1tsp cream of tartar to keep it fresher, just like a homemade playdoh recipe (an alternative to tea tree oil)

Thanks for the great recipe. I can't wait to attempt to make some. Keep up the great content.

Patent link

Looks like it's made with EVA (a rubber alternative) and Oppanol (a polymer used for a variety of things, such as chewing gum). Interesting stuff!

just want to add that I have never tried the homemade stuff but my 3 year old loves moonsand (will try this very soon). I do let her play with it in the house. I threw away the silly moon sand playmat and bought one of those rubbermade bins made to slide under the bed. It's a great little sand box. I only let her play with it on the kitchen floor. So when she's done, pop the lid back on and a quick sweep and it's all cleaned up.

We tried this tonite--20 lbs of pink and 20 lbs of blue play sand for $1.00 a bag, and 3 boxes of cornstarch for 82 cents a piece. We ended up adding more sand than called for and its like wet beach sand. For under $5.00, it will work for a fun outsde activity.

Dry tempera paint to color works best

Hey man does it really work
My kid really loves this stuff
and I think I should try it.

add more sand. A lot more. And for colored sand, try a pet store. They often carry colored sand for hermit crabs. I have founf large bags of colored sand at Home Depot and Lowes though.

I haven't read every post in detail, but I haven't noticed any about what happens a while later...
We made moon sand and decided to put it in the sand/water table sandbox. That was a HUGE mistake. It rotted, smelled like barf, attracted all sorts of things you DON'T want in your sandbox, grew a horrible mould, and required a large amount of work to clean up. First, we dumped the rotten sand into a pit in the backyard (we had been landscaping) and buried it. Then we had to powerwash the sandbox, then bleach & anti-bacterial soap to kill the stink, which had permeated into the plastic.

One hour of fun for hours of labour to clean up... and the "real" moon sand still has no smell months later. Not that I will ever buy that again, either, thanks to the mess.

Hopefully no one else has had such a good-time-gone-bad experience.

i appreciate the fact that someone has done what i wanted to do- which is try to make my own- find a cheaper way- so thank you!!!!!!

i will try oil and the tartar - those who luv to do for themselves like me greatly appreciate this and willing to work out all the 'kinks' takes time i am happy to aim for.

do not need a whole lot of it- and its just 2 adults and a 15 yr old! we luv the bought moonsand and the work together/experimenting of this makes it all worth it.

thank you so much again for sharing this with us!

I own a small business (very small, it’s just me) and it basically involves doing some writing for advertising, marketing, the web and of course, blogging. None of this will ever replace my full-time career, but it does eat up various costs that my accountant has told me I can deduct from my taxes. And when I looked into it further, I found not just a handful of possible deductions, but a veritable smorgasbord.

Edwin Kyalangalilwa

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I love it so much! I was about to buy it at the store but then I desided to make it myself. I used kool aid.

If your sand is damp in the bag don't add any water unless you absolutely need it...other wise you end with sand goop.

Here's a tip: add the cornstarch gradually to the water too. I did that the first time and it worked great. The second time I added the water to the cornstarch, not gradually, and got ooblick (which is another fun thing for kids but not my intention) it still worked but made it so much harder to stir. Thanks for the how to, my son got some great sand toys but when we went to the beach it was so windy we couldn't play, it was that windy. Well if you bring the kid to the beach....bring the beach to the kid. :)

You can use packets of Kool-Aid (without the sugar) and it makes it smell good as well as coloring it and i like your post very much.

What if you added oil instead of water? I came across a recipe for "cloud dough" (can't remember where) that was just oil and flour and it said it felt kind of like moon dough. It would be less likely to dry out than when it is made with water, but I'm not sure it would have the same properties...

Thank you! I am a kindergarten teacher and always looking for affordable ways to have these fun, creative products in my classroom. I work with a lot of kids that have sensory needs and if I buy the "real" things all the time, I'll go broke! I am so thankful to people like you who have the time and talents to figure these concoctions out and share them with the rest of us. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Totally awsome! Have to try it.