Global Kinetic Sand Day Date in the current year: August 11, 2024

Playing with sand is a popular kids’ activity in many parts of the world. It is a great opportunity for children to have unstructured play time that has many developmental benefits. Sand play helps to develop fine motor skills, a sense of textures, imagination and creativity, and even social skills (when children play together in a sandbox or on a beach).

Sand play is primarily associated with summer and the outdoors because children commonly play with sand on beaches or in outdoor sandboxes. Indoor sandboxes are an option, but a lot of parents don’t want to clean up the mess after indoor sand play. Luckily, toy manufacturers have come up with an alternative to real sand for indoor play. It is called Kinetic Sand.

Kinetic Sand is a type of the so-called hydrophobic sand, also known as waterproof sand or magic sand. Sand that doesn’t get wet was originally developed for trapping oils spills near the shore, but it turned out too expensive to continue to be used for its intended purpose, and manufacturers began to market it as a toy instead.

Hydrophobic sand can be dry or wet. The wet version, trademarked as Kinetic Sand, is produced by the Canadian company Spin Master. Kinetic Sand consists of ultrafine particles of silica (in other words, sand) and dimethicone (a silicone polymer). It is available in a variety of colors such as pink, blue and purple.

Kinetic Sand never dries out and has the same physical properties as regular wet sand. It can be molded into shapes, cut into slices with a knife, and used to build castles and other structures. In short, it’s almost like real sand, but less messy and more suitable for indoor sand play.

Spin Master founded Global Kinetic Sand Day in 2020 to promote its Kinetic Sand and encourage children and adults around the globe to engage in sand play. The best way to celebrate it is, of course, to buy some Kinetic Sand and play with it to your heart’s content. And don’t forget to spread the word about the holiday on social media using the hashtags #GlobalKineticSandDay and #KineticSandDay.

If Kinetic Sand isn’t available where you live, you can try to make your own hydrophobic sand by thoroughly mixing the finest sand you can find with dimethicone (about 2–4 g dimethicone per 100 g sand). However, it should be noted that your homemade kinetic sand won’t behave exactly like the commercial product because it will most likely have a larger grain size.

By the way, Global Kinetic Sand Day isn’t the only holiday dedicated to sand play. For example, Sandcastle Day is celebrated annually on the first Saturday of August to promote sand sculpting as an art form and entertainment.