Kids and Sand BOX!!!!!

They sell sand at home depot that is clean and safe specifically for childrens sand boxes. And yet the sand will dry uo and be fine as long as given fresh air for long enough. Rice won't work long term and id probably more dangerous plus mold attracting is left too long moist.

My in-laws bought my son one when he was like 18 months old. Yes he mixed water with sand but what's worse is the lids don't keep the rain out. My sand was soaked and turned green from not drying out. I had to dump it all. RICE??? I thnk if it got wet enough it would start absorbing the water and swell. The water would turn milky and maybe sticky. I wouldn't use rice and I would keep it under cover away from the rain. Also, my son like to dump the sand out onto the ground, so we kept losing sand. I am not a fan of it. I decided to dump the sand onto a tarp and let him play with his dump trucks in it. More fun! Good Luck!

Hi, I have the little tikes sand and water table. It is an outside toy at our house. I have sand and water in it. You can find sterile sand at Toys R Us or any hardware store. It is safe. The sand and water mix. That is the fun of it. It will dry back out. The rice will not. Think about when you cook rice...it never gets dry. When you have anything that has sand in it and it is an outside toy, keep the cover on. Stray animals like to use sand as a litter box so keeping it clean with the cover is a must. Good luck!!

I used to teach preschool and we had a sand table, but all we put in it was rice and some plastic containers that the kids could fill up , empty, and fill again. Wehad a large assortment of cups, small bowls, but all plastic, no glass or sharp edges on anything. The kids loved it, and willingly traded containers and had contests to see who could fill up somthing the fastest. This translated to who could make the biggest mess! I hope this helps; the key, we found, was having a good assortment of containers to play with.

We had it too. I was just too (dare I say) anal to handle it. I used the sand, not the rice. And, my kids were exactly the same ages as yours. SUCH a great idea and they LOVED it. But, some things aren't worth the hassle! I hid it and then eventually threw it away. We used toy boats, toy cars, basically whatever came with it. The sand would get tracked into the house, they would be all wet and sandy. And, try as I might, you cannot keep the sand and water separated! You'll have to decide if it's worth it. We like going up to the playground and playing in the HUGE sand volleyball court just as much.....I like it EVEN better!

Hi!
I was a preschool teacher and we had a water/sand table. We would put a variety of things in the table but only one at a time. So either put water OR sand(rice,dried beans,etc) in the table. I think it's great that you got this table for them! They will learn a lot about science. Use funnels and measuring cups and things that float and sink and they will learn so much through play!

Are you talking about rice cereal or plain cooking rice? Maybe use brown rice with the husk still on it. You have to soak that a long while before it becomes lunch, I think. Or... yeah, use rice cereal or something edible. Actually, rice cereal sounds like a really good option, especially if your youngest begins walking and getting into everything and wanting to play with his siblings while still putting everything into his mouth.

Unless of course they're getting dirty and mixing real sand in there anyways. You don't want to invite them to eat dirty rice cereal.

I would honestly say though, keep your separate play area for it, have them go to it with clean hands, and give them something edible they can mix themselves.

...Now I want one for my son.

We keep our sand table outside with a secure lid on it. Prior to getting it all my daughter wanted to do is dig in the dirt. So a little play sand is nothing compared to the mess of yard dirt. I generally don't put water in it, just sand and some toys. She loves using a funnel and a metal salt shaker, dishes, shovels etc. I let her play with the garden hose on mist seperately but usually not together. Once I did let her mix and I ended up dumping and washing the whole thing out and starting over. I can't do this every day obviously. I'm thinking about getting a seperate water table so she can do both types of play but still avoiding the mixing for the most part. I think you do need to let kids get messy but we have to be practical too.

i had just a sand box.. only had it a few weeks and needed to add a little more to it. so this time... i read the label.. i don't know how dangerous it really is, but the lable on plain ole play sand warns that breathing in the dust from some of the stuff the sand is made from or around, can cause cancer and other bad things.. (i found this out several months ago sorry i don't remember the actually warning) now i'm on the prowl for something safer.. i don't want to alarm you, i mean i grew up just fine playing with that same type of sand... but now that i've seen the warning i can't get it out of my head enough to let my children play in it... needless to say i dumped it in the creek and have an empty box! maybe your sand is different, a different brand or manufactuer..? i hope so.. and if not i hope you have more luck finding better sand! (sorry if i dropped bad news in your lap, but i'd have liked to have been warned)

We went and bought a bag of nice clean white sand from Home Depot. We fill one side with sand and one side with water and let them mix away. On a side note, we keep our table on our back porch, so they can get as messy as they want, we can drain the water after they're done and discard that sand each winter. We get new sand each spring... Enjoy!