Fun Sifting Activity for Kids

Vito is 28 months old.

We were reading the Under the Ground book and chancing upon the page of mining, I decided that we should play pretend to look for jewels in a tub of sand!  As you can see, this activity was intended for sifting the gravels and later on discover the jewels but I realized that sand is quite big so our sifter wouldn’t work.  Thus, I added the scooper from Learning Resources, it has bigger holes in it so it can sift the sand effectively.

I bought the sand from a craft store (450kg) and place them in a storage box with lid.  I find it helpful to setup something like this as it is easier to display in the shelf (with lid on) rather than in an open tub.   I hid most of the jewels in the sand so Vito can dig through it if he wanted to.  First thing, demonstrate to the child how the activity is to be done.  As I mentioned, we were reading this book earlier so he had an idea on what to do.

He scooped a handful of sand and used our scooper as a sifter (or sieve) to separate the sand from the jewels (if any).  See how fascinated he is with the sand!  He even tried to catch some of the sand to know how it feels like!

              

And the fun part is discovering that he was able to dig a precious stone!

This is a simple activity of discovery plus sensorial play! We also counted the jewels at the end.