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Starting August 2003, we'll have an Annual Sandcastle
Contest,
so take a picture!
Ideas: Most kids love making a sand castle! My 8-year old grandson and
his friends sure did! Bring sand back from the beach, mix in cornstarch, bag it
up and give with directions. This is a great souvenir for the kids on your
list. Or just buy a bag of play sand and mix up a batch
Ingredients: Equal parts water and cornstarch and twice as much sand.
A heaping laundry scoop is about a cup. We used...
- 4 cups sand
- 2 cups cornstarch
- 2 cups water
Front of candcastle as shown in picture probably took
about a batch and a half or 6 cups of sand.
Instructions: Mix sand and cornstarch in an OLD pot.
It could
scratch a new pot. Pour in water and heat. Keep stirring until
sand is like VERY thick mud. Cool and dump onto newspapers outside. Kids
love this project but an adult should do the cooking part and make sure it is
cool before giving to kids! Work
pieces of it in your hands until it is like play dough. Use any kind of flexible
molds like Jell-O cups, butter dishes, laundry scoops, sand buckets,
old candy molds etc. to build a castle or you can shape it by hand. If sand is drying out,
wet hands and then work it in your hands. Keep a bowl of water handy.
Building: If using flexible molds, pack sand in tightly and leave about 1/4
unfilled. Push in on sides of mold to loosen and tap onto a hard
surface to release. In above picture, towers in middle and to
right were made from toilet paper rolls. Pack sand in tightly and
then peel the tube away. Center "drawbridge" was one of
the compartments in a Lunchable. Tops of towers were single
serving Jell-O/pudding disposable cups. Each large stacked
"brick" was made by partially filling a laundry scoop.
Tips: Cracks can be smoothed by wetting hands and rubbing over the piece,
but we didn't worry much about it! lol Ours is an ancient castle! We molded the pieces and set out to
dry but I guess you could stack them
while wet or even mold it all by hand. We only got the front of our
castle done. It was almost 100 degrees and
no ocean nearby to take a dip in! There was a rainstorm a few days
later and the castle came through amazingly well!
Packaging of Exotic Sand: Put the sand and cornstarch in a
large Ziploc bag. Recipe proportions can easily be adjusted. Use a Xyron
machine or clear contact paper to make poem label and stick it to the
front of bag. Insert instructions in bag so they can be seen from
the back.
Contest Prizes: Please check back but we'll
come up with some good ones!
Print both poem and
directions 2-up.
Clip Art Credit: www.clipsahoy.com/webgraphics/as1285.htm
(mermaid)
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