Sand Slime Recipe

This sand slime recipe combines our perfect fluffy slime with brightly colored sand to make a fun textured slime that provides hours of sensory play.

SENSORY PLAY WITH SAND SLIME

Sensory play consists of activities that let children explore multiple senses and sensations.

Slime is a great sensory activity that engages several senses. Kids explore sight as slime is quite mesmerizing to watch, especially with colors. They also explore sound; those squelches are seriously satisfying.

For the sense of smell, the glue and starch have their own mild scents, and the shaving cream you choose can be scented or unscented. You can also add extracts or essential oils for additional fragrance.

And of course, the most engaged of the senses during slime play is touch. Slime is fluid and sticky when touched and moved slowly, but firm when manipulated quickly. Sand slime has an added tactile sensation from the gritty sand.

Sand slime is my absolute favorite slime and I always join the kids when they’re playing with it. In fact, I will sometimes grab some sand slime by myself when I feel like I need relaxation or something to keep my hands busy. There’s something so soothing about the texture. I like it even better than silly putty!

SAND SLIME VS KINETIC SAND

I want to make sure to communicate that this sand slime recipe is NOT the same as kinetic sand. Kinetic sand has a crumbly texture texture, this sand slime recipe is basically fluffy slime with sand mixed in. But, you can feel free to increase the amount of sand to get a sandier texture.

You can also skip the slime and use our Kinetic Sand Recipe to make your own diy kinetic sand.

SAND SLIME INGREDIENTS

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• White Elmer’s Glue: We buy our glue by the gallon so we can make ALL the slime!
• Liquid Starch: Here’s another ingredient to get cheaper by the gallon.
• Shaving Cream: You will also need white foamy shaving cream to get that fluffy texture. We prefer unscented shaving cream if we can find it.
• Sand: You can absolutely use fine beach sand, or get the giant 50 lb bag of sand from Home Depot. I prefer using decor sand because it’s super fine and comes in a variety of colors. My daughter really wanted pink sand so we went with that.
• Food Coloring (optional): We skipped the food coloring, but you could definitely add some to intensify the color of your sand slime. You’ll notice in the photos that our sand slime is a much lighter pink than the sand itself.

HOW TO MAKE SAND SLIME

• Use a large bowl and fill it with about 1 cup of white glue. You don’t have to be exact!

• Add in about a cup of foamy shaving cream and mix it together with a spatula or a wooden craft stick.

• Now it’s time to add your sand. Start with about 1/2 cup of sand and mix it in, then decide if you want more. We used 3/4 cup of fine craft sand in our sand slime recipe.

• Now add about 1/2 cup of liquid starch to your slime base. The starch is the slime activator. You can read all about the science of slime here.

• Stir the starch into the sand slime base. When the sand slime starts to stick to the craft stick, it’s time to pick it up and knead it with your hands. If it is still too sticky, just add a little more starch.

If you’d like to try out slime without sand, we highly recommend taking a look at our Borax Slime Recipe.

MORE SENSORY ACTIVITIES FOR TODDLERS AND PRESCHOOLERS

Want even more sensory activities for kids? Here’s some of my kiddos’ favorites:

Homemade Ice Cream in a Bag

Shaving Cream Painting

Toddler Goop Recipe (food safe!)

Toddler Bath Paints

Dry Ice Bubbles for Science Experiment for Preschoolers

Baking Soda Art

Borax Slime Recipe

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