How to Make Edible Sand for Babies (Edible Cheerio Sand)

Worried your child will try to eat the sand in their sandbox? If you have a baby or toddler at home who likes to put everything in their mouth, grind up some Cheerios to make some EDIBLE sensory sand for them to play with!

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If you have a baby or toddler at home, you probably know what it’s like to walk past fun sensory things at the store, like slime and kinetic sand, and think, “My child would just eat this…”

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to wait until they’re older to let them join in on the fun—it just means that you have to get a little creative.

There are actually lots of ways to make your own child-friendly sensory materials at home, and if you make them yourself, you have total control over the ingredients.

That means that if your children like to put everything in their mouth, you can simply use edible ingredients that are safe for babies and toddlers to play with!

We have tried countless taste-safe sensory play recipes over the years, but this DIY taste-safe sand is absolutely the easiest. It only requires ONE ingredient (that you probably already have at home) and can be ready to play with in under 5 minutes.

And of course, it’s 100% edible and kid-safe.

If that sounds like something you’d like to try, read on to find out the easiest way to make your own edible sand for sensory bins!

Required Supplies

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own sand for your child play with:

• Cheerios (we used Multi Grain Cheerios—Honey Nut Cheerios would probably work too, but I would imagine the sand may end up a little stickier than the one we made)
• Blender or food processor

Yes, that’s really it—just cereal and a blender. Making baby-safe sand at home couldn’t be any simpler!

How to Make Taste-Safe Play Sand (Step-by-Step)

1. Place Cheerios in Blender

Start by pouring some Cheerios inside the bowl of your blender or food processor. I decided to use my Baby Bullet for this because it’s awesome and easy to clean, but a regular food processor or blender will work just fine if you don’t have a Baby Bullet.

Don’t worry too much about the quantities as you can always just add more Cheerios if needed!

2. Run Blender or Food Processor

Once you’ve added all your Cheerios to the bowl of your blender or food processor, turn it on and run it until the Cheerios have been processed into a fine powder. (Their volume will reduce significantly.)

Since I was using a Baby Bullet, I ended up doing several small batches and shaking it around a bit in order to break up all the pieces of Cheerio.

If you’re using a regular-sized blender or food processor, you should be able to make enough homemade sand in one batch—unless you’re making it for a whole class of one-year-olds, of course.

3. Set Up Edible Beach Sand Sensory Bin (Optional)

Once you’ve processed the Cheerios into a fine powder, your fake sand is ready to play with! It has such a silky texture.

If you’re pressed for time or trying to keep things simple, feel free to simply pour the sand into a tray and let your baby or toddler play. But for added fun, I decided to set up a beach-themed sensory bin to go with our edible sensory sand!

Since my kids were excited to start playing, I kept mine really basic.

I simply pressed all of the play sand onto one side of the sensory tray and slowly poured some coloured water into the other side to create the ocean. Then, I topped it off with some plastic ocean toys and let my kids have fun with!

Because I used water, the sand that came into contact with it did get wet and the water ended up a little cloudy during play. But my kids didn’t seem to mind.

That being said, if you’re prepping this in advance and want to avoid ending up with soggy Cheerio sand, you can always use blue Jell-O (or unflavoured gelatin with blue food colouring) instead.

Simply prep the Jell-O, let it set in a separate container for a few hours, then break it up into chunks and add those chunks to the tray containing the fake sand to create a gelatinous “ocean” for your sensory bin.

I’m sure our kids would have loved this too if they hadn’t been so impatient to start playing—we probably could have even reused the jelly from this Jell-O Rescue Sensory Bin if we’d planned things out properly, which I’ll definitely be keeping in mind for next time!

Alternatively, you can just pour the gelatin mixture straight into the container you’ll be using for your sensory bin and keep the container in a tilted position while the gelatin sets. Then, simply pour the fake sand into the bin when your child is ready to play.

Related Edible Sensory Activities

Looking for more taste-safe sensory activities and sensory bin fillers that are appropriate for infants, babies and toddlers? Check out these articles:

• 4 Ways to Make Taste-Safe Mud
• 30 Taste-Safe & Edible Paint Recipes for Kids
• Taste-Safe Chia Seed Sensory Play
• Edible Baby Rice Cereal & Applesauce Play Dough
• How to Make Taste-Safe Gelatin Cubes
• Taste-Safe Sensory Foam
• Edible Water Beads for Toddlers & Preschoolers
• How to Make Taste-Safe Moon Sand

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