The 10 Best Sandboxes

Human curiosity is something that appears at a very young age. Children are naturally inquisitive about the world around them and how things work. That form of curiosity can help pave the way to early experimentation with one's surroundings, which leads to active learning through play and the physical manipulation of things as a form of expression. These experiences also become a part of a person's identity, hence why play at a young age offers so many benefits to a growing child. Not only does play spark the imagination, but it also provides many possibilities. Recalling those days in kindergarten when you'd go out into the schoolyard to have fun with your friends during lunch, you might have experienced the fun of playing in the sand. When in abundance, this substance is easy to shovel, store, and transport, and it can be shaped into many forms, giving a child some degree of control over what they wish to create and how they want it to look when they're done. This could explain one of the reasons why the sandbox is a popular form of play and social interaction for little ones.

Typically constructed from sturdy wood or plastic, a sandbox is simply a confined, shallow box partially filled with sand and used for unstructured child play. Now that we've provided its textbook definition , what's all the hubbub and how does the sandbox provide such a useful environment for children? Much like the activity of fingerpainting, a sandbox provides a blank canvas of sorts that fosters creativity and learning. The unique quality to the sandbox is that a child (or group of kids) can interact and collaborate in an effort to both form and explore their own little world with their hands. This can involve touching, constructing, deconstructing, molding, or moving large volumes of sand from one place to another. Anyone who's ever been to the beach on a summer day can recall seeing kids using brightly-colored pails to build sandcastles. Kids work together inside a sandbox to construct something very similar when they don't have the luxury of being on the beach.

Thinking of this type of collaboration, it's no wonder that the term sandbox has also become synonymous with virtual development environments for computers, too. Granted, a discussion of sandbox development environments is a tangent from our topic here, but the terminology and concept of working together to create something and test possibilities is what matters. Kids may not be inclined to test and develop software at such a young age, but they will develop their imaginations, collaboration, and decision-making skills by playing in a physical sandbox. Working with sand at a young age also develops a child's motor skills, which can help later in life when it comes to handwriting or playing sports. Finally, the sandbox teaches impermanence, meaning that things won't always stay the same from one minute to the next.

So besides the traditional forms of unstructured, collaborative play, how else does the sandbox maintain its relevance? Simple objects like coins or beads can be buried in a sandbox and collected by kids as a form of treasure hunting. It can also be used a sensory tool to help kids learn to read and write as they trace patterns into the sand with a stick or other tool.