In the moment sand

One of the children playing in the sand wanted to add water to it. The children were provided water to explore what would happen to the sand. The children enjoyed the change in texture and used their wooden tools to explore digging and scraping it, observing different marks that they made. The activity lead to the wet sand being added to the malleable tray with wooden blocks for children to discover how wet sand could be used to cement blocks together. The children also explored what happened when you continue to add water to sand, outside in a bucket, talking about it getting sloppy. The children linked it to their own experiences, saying it then looked like mud. They maintained their focus on their activity and paid attention to details. They were able to make marks in the sand, practising their pre writing skills and they were encouraged to talk about what they were observing, commenting and asking questions about aspects of their familiar world.