The sand tray provides a wealth of opportunities for teaching different science concepts in early years. You don’t need anything fancy, at a pinch a plastic storage crate will do the trick. Many accessories such as funnels, sponges and sieves can be picked up cheaply in Pound shops or similar.

Here are just a few ideas:

Burrows and tunnels

Purpose: To investigate the properties of materials using appropriate senses. To find out about the features of living things.

Resources: Sand tray with dry sand, jug or small watering can, scoops, spoons, spades or trowels, small plastic animals.

Activities:

• Look at pictures of tunnels, caves and burrows. Talk about animals that live underground and in caves and tunnels used/ made by people. Or read a story about animals which burrow e.g. ” A snowy night” or “Moles can dance”.
• Encourage children to play with the dry sand. What does it look/feel like? Can you dig a burrow through it? Can you dig a burrow big enough for one of the animals?
• Investigate different scoops, spoons, and trowels. Which one makes the best hole? Which would be best to make a little hole? Can you make a long tunnel?
• Discuss sand being dry. What if the sand was wet? Get children to add water to some sand in a separate tray.
• What has happened to the sand? What has changed? Is it easier to make burrows/ tunnels in the wet or dry sand?
• Repeat activities as for dry sand

Trickling sand

Purpose: To investigate the properties of materials using appropriate senses.

Resources. Sand trays with wet and dry sand, sieves, colanders, funnels, net, any small containers with holes in them, small plastic animals

Activities:

• Ask children to pick up a handful of dry sand. Is it easy to hold? Let it trickle through your fingers. What does it feel like?
• Encourage children to explore putting the sand through the different containers with holes. What happens to the sand? Predict which container will allow the sand through most quickly.
• Trickle the sand on top of a toy animal. What happens?
• Repeat activities with wet sand. Does it still trickle? Will it go through the sieve etc? Does the wet sand fall the same way as the dry sand?

Making waves

Purpose: To investigate the properties of materials using appropriate senses. To look closely at similarities and differences. To find out about some features of events they observe.

Resources. Deep tray with dry sand piled in one half, sieves, colanders, spoons, containers.

Activities:

• Ask children to pour water into the empty half of the deep tray and watch as the water soaks into the sand. What is happening to the water/ sand? Will all the sand get wet?
• Ask children to make waves with the water. Discuss what they have seen happen with waves on the beach. What happens to the sand?
• Challenge the children to think what will happen if they make bigger waves.
• Let the children mix the sand and water until they have a “sloppy” texture. Encourage them to explore the mixture using different tools and containers. Ask if they can pick up the sand and water. What stays in your hand and what falls through your fingers? Can they make a big mound? What happens when you put sloppy sand in a sieve?
• Challenge the children to think about how we could make the sand dry. Put the tray in a warm dry place and allow the children to play with it over a period of time as it dries out.

Making prints in the sand.

Purpose: To investigate objects and materials using all of their senses as appropriate.

Resources: A selection of materials, sand, pictures of animals and tracks

Activities:

• Children may have noticed that footprints can be made in the sand on the beach. Ask them to make similar prints in the sand tray, the prints could include: Jelly moulds, Animal prints, Wheels, Shapes, Container tops, Toy vehicle tracks,
• When the children go home, make animal tracks in the sand and place pictures of the animals for children to match.
• Challenge them to find out which animals have been in the sand tray overnight.

Slopes and slides

Purpose: To investigate objects. To find out about features of objects they observe.

Resources. Sand tray with wet sand, marbles.

Activities:

• Discuss playing on slides at the playground. Ask the children to make a slide in the sand for the marble to run down. How could you make the marble go faster?
• Encourage the children to make different slopes to make the marble run in different ways- Faster, slower, with a place to stop the marble before it gets to the bottom of the slope.
• Challenge the children to make a curved slope. Does the marble fall over the side? How could we stop it falling?
• Allow the children time to explore their different slopes/ slides.

Stretchy socks.

Purpose: To investigate objects and materials using all of their senses as appropriate.

Resources: A selection of socks, dry sand

Activities:

• Let children fill a variety of socks with sand and see what happens.
• Which sock stretches the most?
• Which part of the sock stretches the most?
• How many cupfuls of sand did you pour into the sock?
• Did you pour the same amount of sand into each sock?
• Did that sock stretch the most without sand in it?
• The children could record by measuring with multilink or ‘marking’ the length of the sock on coloured paper

Sandcastles

Purpose: To investigate the properties of materials using appropriate senses.

Resources: Sand tray with wet and dry sand, small buckets, plastic pots, cups, moulds, small plastic spades, wooden bricks.

Activities,

• Begin with dry sand. Challenge children to build a tower with the dry sand. How tall can they make it? Can they build a tall thin tower?
• Add water to the dry sand or use a separate container of wet sand. Challenge children to build a tower with the wet sand. Can they make the tallest tower with wet or dry sand? Can they build a tall thin tower?
• Make sand castles using the different buckets, moulds etc. Which makes the tallest, fattest, smallest, thinnest sand castle?
• Investigate which is the strongest sand castle by putting bricks on top of each until they collapse. Ask children to predict which castle they think is the strongest.

Going on a treasure hunt

Purpose: To investigate the properties of materials using appropriate senses.

Resources: Dry sand piled in a tray or washing up bowl, sieves, colanders, spoons, funnels. A selection of objects to bury e.g. pebbles, pasta, buttons, rice, magnetic objects such as paper clips, washers. Magnets.

Activities:

• Bury the objects in the bowl of sand.
• Ask children to dig with their fingers to find the objects.
• After a while encourage them to use different size sieves, colanders. How does the sieve catch the pebbles but not the sand. Which things will go through the holes in the colander? Will anything be caught in the funnel?
• Now give the children a magnet. Explore which objects in the room stick to the magnet. Ask children to use the magnets to find treasure in the sand. What sticks/ does not stick to the magnet? Can the magnet find treasure buried under the sand?

Any other great ideas? Share them in the comments.