Choices for Children: Painting with Orange Sand and Orange Kool-aid

Kids will love the crunchy sound, the gritty texture, the zesty orange fragrance of painting with sand and kool-aid. It's invigorating!

sensory activities for kids, sensory painting for kids, scented paint, painting with kool-aid

This activity started from an image we saw pinned from Play Create Explore. In the original image they painted with purple paint, purple Kool-aid and purple sand.

We had orange Kool-aid and orange paint and purchased a 1.5 pound container of orange craft sand from our local craft store for $3.

At first we dove in without thoroughly reading the directions and only used Kool-aid, water and craft sand.

Now you can imagine the sand did not dry on the paper. But the sensory input was still there with feedback from the gritty texture of the sand and the invigorating scent. The bonus activity we got from jumping in without fully reading the directions was a hands-on activity that is process oriented and can be recreated using the same supplies.

Notice the orange nail polish...

Simply put- shake the dry sand back into your container and do-over! Also if you have a rimmed baking sheet, this can be a great sensory activity just moving the scented, wet sand around on the baking sheet. Children can draw lines, shapes, letter or words with their fingers adding a literacy component.

Ahhh...so then we added orange paint and got the full deal- the gritty texture, the aroma and the product!