Kinetic Sand and Seashells

So, I caught wind they had Kinetic sand at the .99 cent only stores-and I may not have died (lol). I don't live near one, but a gracious friend picked me up several bags. It was $1.99 for 2 lbs! We have been having so much fun with a large amount of kinetic sand, and what better way to play with this wonderful white sand than a beach theme?

Kinetic sand is wonderful for a variety of reasons, and one of the best parts is that it holds shapes really well. This was perfect for the real sea shells we used! It was easy to make prints and molds.

I also felt this activity went really well with the Earth Day theme, but I didn't have any age appropriate (19 months) books about the beach. If you have a older toddler this would be a great introduction.

Here is how well the sand holds natural shapes:

And even the inside of shells:

Here is some of the printmaking we did:

It would be fun to also incorporate water beads in a separate tray to really give this a beach feel-however I didn't want to ruin my precious kinetic sand! But maybe next time I'll be more daring :)