Why Sandplay Is Important For Your Baby?

This weekend, we went to our all time favourite resort, I love it for the spa, Mr. D for the infinity pool and Boo for the beach, as he gets endless time to play in sand.

Sandplay is an easy activity to offer children, whether taking tot to a beach or  create it indoors by placing it in a sand tray with sand toys or mixing it with other items. When children are happily playing in the sand, they are learning new skills and building on areas of their development.

1. Sandplay helps strengthen baby’s large muscles as he uses these muscles to dig,  pour, scoop and shovel the sand.

2. Pouring the sand into containers this is also improving their hand-eye coordination. For elder children early mathematics can be incorporated. Number of scoops poured, concept of less and more etc.

3. Sand play is a social activity as children play together and alongside other children. They construct and share new ideas which helps in their social and negotiating skills (elder children)

4. It can also be a dramatic play where baby let lose his imagination and gets creative by building castle, throwing in animals, stones ,leaves anything.

5. Sand play is great for developing children’s language skills as they learn new words relating to the names of objects in the sand/sand tray. (With active participation of parents).

These early years learning lays the foundation of your baby’s personality and helps in character building. When planning activities for your child never be afraid of the mess, let your baby enjoy, let his creative juices flow when you give him free play.

However at the end of the activity, you can always encourage baby to clean up the mess. I know he won’t be able to do it completely but guiding him on regular basis will build habit to clean up.

Something as basic as sand can teach so much to your baby. Go ahead and plan one for your baby.

(Let me know if you have any questions on preparing sand bin or planning the activity)

Also read: Fun Salt Painting Art Activity For Toddlers

#finemotorskills #toddleractivities #sandplay