Space Tuff Tray - Moon Sand & Moon Rock Catapults

I'd been planning to make moon sand this week for our 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing activities but after a listening to a lady being interviewed on Radio 4 I thought of another activity to extend it.

The lady's job is to find moon rock on Earth & analyse it. She's been to Antartica twice to find it, as an out-of-place rock is easier to spot in a snowy landscape, but it falls all over the world and so far humans have found about 60,000 pieces in various locations.

So I added a couple of catapults to the moon tray with some moon rocks (pom poms). I used a blue chalk pen to draw Earth onto our green tuff tray & placed the tray down below the moon tray for some moon rock target practice! They had great fun trying to aim their moon rocks onto the Earth tray!

The catapults are really easy to make, I have made these with the children before & Ollie is keen to make another one himself. Simply put one lollipop stick on top of another & fasten them together at one end with a rubber band. Put a pile of five lollipop sticks in between the two original sticks & fasten them in place with another rubber band. Then glue a milk bottle top to the unfastened end to put your projectile in, leaving a little bit of stick exposed at the end for you to press down & release to send your moon rock flying!

If you haven't come across moon sand it is a softer, mouldable version of sand. You can model it into shapes & then flatten it down again. It has a really lovely texture & is very inviting to play with, lovely for sensory & messy play.

It's really easy to make - just mix together 8 cups of plain flour with 1 cup of vegetable oil. It will last for ages, just store it in a Tupperware or put a waterproof cover over your tuff tray if you're intending to use it again very soon. It can be a little messy like normal sand so we used it outside, I wouldn't recommend using it in a carpeted room!

I added a toy ice cream set into the tray (£1 from The Works) & Phoebe enjoyed making ice creams but quickly returned to her space game, making craters in her moon by sticking her fingers into the moon sand & making a bed for her astronaut. I think this will be getting played with again over the weekend!😊🌛🚀