We have had a wonderful week of sand play.

William got a wonderful wooden pirate ship for Christmas from his Granny and Granddad.

He loves playing with it and we read the book Port Side Pirates that has helped us to learn all the language we need for describing the ship.

Esther also loves the pirate ship as it has girl pirates as well as boys.

After reading through our many pirate stories Esther and William decided that what they really needed was a pirate island, made of sand with a crepe paper sea to allow their pirate ship to set sail.

As ever, their wish was my command.

We poured a pile of play sand into the Tuff Spot and surrounded it with torn tissue and crepe paper in different shades of blue. The ship sailed around the island. The pirates disembarked and busied themselves on the island burying treasure. And finding it again!

Daddy took this play opportunity to teach Esther and William about maps and simple grid references. It was a lovely activity to extend and enhance our role play in the sand.

After a day of pirates we decided to adapt our play. We took away the pretend water and added more sand for free sand play. Esther and William had a wonderful time building sandcastles and knocking them down again. We found different things around our playroom to use as sand toys. It was great fun.

I did not have any flags for our turrets and so we improvised with cocktail umbrellas that gave our sand construction some colour and pizzazz!

I love making sandcastles and Esther and William do too. We scraped and scooped and piled the sand into containers, we packed it in and patted it down. We remembered the all important magic taps and revealed some wonderful castles. Some we decorated, some we smashed, some we carved with wooden knives, learning all the time about construction, shape and space, cause and effect and even fractions. So much to learn by playing in the sand!

Esther loved cutting her castles carefully into half and then trying to halve a half into quarters. Learning all the time about numbers but also a great activity for developing fine motor skills.

After a while Esther and William asked if they could use their tin tea set in the sand. This enabled us to extend our play even further as we used the tiny tin tea cups to make tiny domes and these soon became tiny tea cakes. All made from our super soggy sand!

After enjoying our sand tea party it was time to throw some letters into the mix. We have some fabulous sand moulds that make letters and numbers in the sand. Esther and William know their alphabet now, they can spell simple CVC words and they can spell their names. Using letters in sensory play like this has played a huge role in developing their language skills.

Using sand to make letters is true sensory spelling. It helps with letter recognition, ordering the alphabet, learning sounds and simple spelling. And it is just great messy fun!

Using these brightly coloured sand moulds also adds a splash of colour to your play. Sand feels lovely and is wonderful to mould and push and to have running through your fingers but it is quite dull to look at really. Add some colour with some fun sand toys, letters and numbers have great play value and they are educational too!

We use the moulds in and out of the sand for word building. Sometimes I make a word and Esther and William sound it out and say it, or sometimes I will say a word and they try their best to build it. We love playing with letters and sounds in the sand!

At the weekend Daddy decided to get involved with our sensory play and make it truly messy and muddy! He added water, buckets and buckets and buckets of water. Making the sand sloppy and gloopy and slimy but with just enough stick for making things such as mountains and caves and tunnels!

Esther spent ages filling different container with different spoons. A lot of time was spent squidging the slippery sand through fingers and squelching hands into the soaked grains. William loved pushing spoons through tunnels pretending they were engines. A lot of fun was had with Daddy, splashing, squelching and squerching! A super sensory experience for all.

Adding water to sand changes the consistency and behaviour of the sand, it totally changes how we use it.

The sand soon began to look like a swamp and so, of course, it was time to add the dinosaurs!

The swamp stayed with us for days as Esther and William played together and individually becoming totally engrossed in their own imaginary, small world play. The dinosaurs stomped through the sand, they splashed in the stream, sailed on boats, got dirty and washed themselves. It was wonderful to watch them play.

It has been a fascinating experience having a week of sand play and following Esther and William’s lead for finding new and different ways of playing in the sand.

Don’t wait for summer to play in the sand. Bring the sand inside!