School-Age: Sand Castles

When I was starting to plan programs for the Collaborative Summer Library Program theme of "Build a Better World", I had a thought about building sand castles for a program. It took some thought to make it come together, but we built sand castles at the library this week!

1. Reading
We read "Extremely Cute Animals Operating Heavy Machinery" by David Gordon. It was not my favorite when I first read the book, but it works for the topic and the kids enjoyed it as a read aloud. 

My only note for the book is that I did not read the word "stupid" aloud. One of my parents, after one of the programs this week, actually thanked me for not doing so. I do not know why the book included it. It may not be the worst word out there but I also do not want kids to start thinking it is a good word to express their thoughts/feelings about one another. 

2. Discussion

We discussed whether or not they had ever made sand castles before and how big they had built them.

Then we delved into the topic of actual castles. What did they look like? Why did they have walls and towers? We pointed out other cool features like apartments where lords and ladies lived, moats, armories and more.

I used some pictures in these two books to show the kids what castles look like:

3. Activity/Craft

So it wasn't as much a craft as it was an activity, but we built SAND CASTLES! I wanted to make kinetic sand and found a recipe that was somewhat close to it. I used the recipe from the Living Ithaca blog but the proportions didn't quite work out for me. The play sand we bought came in cubic feet not pounds so I had to play around with the ingredients until it had a consistency that worked for our program. 

We used the same ingredients:

• Play Sand
• Cornstarch
• Water
• Dishsoap

The proportions for my program:

• 3 bags of .5 cubic feet Play Sand (50 lb. bags)
• ~9 cups of Cornstarch
• 6 cups of water
• 3 tablespoons of dishsoap

I think some hardware stores label .5 cubic feet of sand as 50 lbs., which matches the recipe from Living Ithaca. However, the recipe had initially called for 6 cups for ONE 50 lb. bag. It was way too liquidy and soupy when I added the 6 cups of water for one bag of sand. When I added the extra bags of sand it made the consistency better for playing with.

A member had donated a large plastic tub when they donated books a year ago. I saved it and it ended up being the perfect thing to mix several bags of sand in. 

We ladled the sand onto paper plates and handed it out to the kids. They also were able to use a Dixie cup to mold the sand and had jumbo craft sticks, spoons, and toothpicks to help build their castles.

We are fortunate enough to have a large outdoor space outside of the library. It was sunny both days we had the program this week so, to avoid a mess inside the library, we took the program outside!

Here are some of the castles the kids in the program made:

Notes:

It was a little hot for this program to be outside, having it in July, but we made it work. I gave the parents that registered ahead of time for the program a heads up that we may be heading outside and to bring hats and sunscreen for the kids.

Otherwise, it was a fun program and I think all the kids really enjoyed making sand castles at the library!