Cra-Z sand is a new brand of mouldable sand that has just been released from Character Toys. We love sensory play with this type of material so I was really interested to try out this new brand with the kids, and they have had a lot of fun with it.
The set that we were sent is the Cra-Z Sand deluxe playset (RRP £24.99) which comes with a tray, 1.5lb of the cra-z sand, and 4 tools which you can use to make marks, roll the sand flat, or cut it.
You can also buy smaller themed sets, such as the cool cars box and I love that they have small pocket money sets available for just £4.99 so that you could try out the material and see if your child is interested in it before buying a larger set. You can also buy refills of the sand without the tray and tools, if your sand needs a top up over time. The sand is also available in lots of different colours, including natural sand colour, purple (as you can see ours above) blue, green and pink.
These are the tools that came with the deluxe box. Since they are more mark making focused than moulding, we decided to do some story telling in the tray (adding in some of our own stampers too).
The cra-z sand easily fills up the whole tray and when rolled down flat it’s a really fun surface to use to write letters or make lines. You can use any stamps or house hold items with the cra-z sand too, and explore the impressions that they make.
Anything that adds a tactile element to learning is a great tool to have at home. We used stamps with the Cra-Z sand to put stories into sequence, and you could also use it to write out your spelling words into the sand.
The sand is also a lot of fun to pick up and explore. You can roll it into a ball, or drop it and watch it crumble into little pieces that are a bit fluffy and look like they are moving. It’s a cool effect to watch.
My kids love to bring an element of “racing” into a lot of their play, so we rolled balls of the Cra-Z sand and held them above the tray, to see who’s sand would crumble down first.
You can also hide things in the sand and have a hunt to dig them out. My boys added some of their figurines to the sand and then covered them up to make them trapped, and then staged a rescue. The Cra-Z sand is a pretty versatile material that can be used in a lot of ways.
Cra-Z sand is also a let less messy than regular play sand, because it sticks to itself and you don’t get the tiny grains of sand everywhere in the same way so it is a lot more suitable for hassle free indoor play.
This set does not include moulds, but we do have similar types of sand already and know that it works really well with moulds – including any small household tubs or containers, cups etc, so it would be fun to gather some of those and experiment with them in the Cra-Z sand too.
The Cra-Z sand material is really very similar to Kinetic sand, or Sands Alive, so any activities and ideas that you come across for those materials will definitely work fine with this set too, such as our kinetic sand racing track that we made before.
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Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
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I’ve not seen anything like this before. I tend to keep sand outside, as you say because of the mess, but this looks like a good indoor activity. My son loves playing with sand and play dough, so the perfect world for him!