This two-ingredient moon sand recipe has been a favorite of ours over the last year. We recently whipped up two batches of colored moon sand for a Valentine’s Day sensory bin.
What Is Moon Sand?
DIY moon sand is a soft and powdery sand that will hold together when you squeeze or mold it.
I think it’s called moon sand because it sort of looks like the surface of the moon.
It’s a great alternative to play dough or kinetic sand and really easy to make at home.
How to Make Colored Moon Sand
Moon sand can be made taste-safe for younger kids using oil-based food coloring. This is different from regular food coloring because it will mix with oil more readily.
Some brands might call it “candy food coloring.”
Or, if it doesn’t matter whether your moon sand is taste-safe, you can use powdered paint or chalk to color your moon sand like we did.
I’ll have a printable recipe for you at the bottom of the post. The recipe is really simple:
8 parts flour to 1 part oil
To make our moon sand, we poured 4 cups of white flour in a bin.
Then we added one half cup of oil and mixed it all together until it made a nice crumbly dough. We used canola oil, but any other type of oil should also work.
This is the same recipe we used for our cookie cloud dough.
Moisture levels can vary with different brands of flour (and with who’s doing the measuring!), so if your moon sand isn’t holding together when you squeeze it, add more oil.
Since Valentine’s Day is coming up soon, we decided to color our moon sand pink and purple by grating colored chalk and mixing it in.
Regular food coloring won’t work because it doesn’t mix well with oil. That’s why we used chalk.
Also, we tried coloring the moon sand both before and after mixing the oil in and I’m happy to report that both work just fine. It’ll just take a little extra mixing to color the sand if the oil is already mixed in.
Playing with Colored Moon Sand
I gave each kid their own bin of colored moon sand and a bunch of heart and teddy bear cookie cutters to play with.
Elena (age 3) used the cookie cutters to mold hearts. She did get a little frustrated with the moon sand because it doesn’t behave exactly like play dough.
I simply reminded her to pack the sand down as hard as she could into the cutter to make the heart shapes.
She most enjoyed exploring the texture of the moon sand.
Squeezing it to pack it together, and then making it crumble and fall apart.
Moon sand keeps well for several months. Just keep it in an air-tight container or zip-top bag.
Our original batch lasted for 8 months before the sprinkles started to bleed into the sand.
Another Way to Play
I also gave each girl a cup and a bowl of red and clear gems to share.
Elena made a moon sand tower that she topped with diamond gems. She then claimed all the diamond gems for herself because that’s what princesses like, apparently.
Lia (18 months) didn’t seem to care. She was happy transferring the remaining gems from the bowl to her purple cup and back again.
Moon sand kept Lia’s hands busy for a whole twenty minutes.
That’s a really long time for an 18-month-old!
She spent most of her time squeezing it and dropping handfuls into the bin from up high.
“Ready? Ready? Whee!”
Clean Up Time
The floor did get pretty messy. I forgot to lay out our old shower curtain to catch the spills.
However, this moon sand vacuums up really quickly!
Your Turn to Make Colored Moon Sand
As promised, the printable recipe for colored moon sand is down below. You can check out our cookie dough moon sand recipe here.
Hope you enjoy!
Colored Moon Sand
Supplies
- 4 cups white flour
- 1/2 cup oil
- colored chalk
Instructions
- Grate colored chalk into a fine dust. Mix with flour.
- Stir the oil into colored flour until it makes a crumbly dough.
- Once everything is incorporated, squeeze a handful. It should hold. If it doesn't, add more oil a tablespoon at a time.