3rd Birthday Gift Guide and Giveaway - Sands Alive by John Adams

Its day 5 of Lily's Birthday Gift Guide and Giveaway. Today I am reviewing the wonderful Sands Alive by John Adams. 

Also to celebrate Lily's Birthday John adams have kindly let me give away a Paw Patrol Felts set. You can enter for that at the bottom of this review. 

But first let me tell you all about the Sands Alive Set we were sent!

We were sent the sweet treats version of the sands alive. I had tried it out a little at the Blog On convention and so couldn't wait to give it a real go.

Lily was really excited when I told her it was called sands alive. She loves playing in the sand and is currently very disappointed that she can't go out and play with her sand pit. I wrapped it up for her birthday and she was delighted to see sand. So if your child loves playing in sand, then it really does make the perfect gift.

Sands alive is just like sand but with a difference. Instead of being really dry and only clumping toggether when wet, the sands alive is actually a super soft modelling material. It looks just like sand, but it feels a little bit like a mixture of sand and play dough. It's soft and stretchy and you can mould it together to make things. I hate the feeling of sand usually, but I didn't actually mind this and preferred the feeling of it.

The idea behind it is that it lets children make things like sand castles all year around and with a lot less mess.

This set came with a bag of sand, 2 Ice cream cones, 2 cup cake moulds, a ice cream top mould, a scoop and 2 cake shaped moulds. It all comes in a handy little tray that you can play in.

The moulds are all really colourful and also full of detail so then when you make your sweet treats they look like the real deal. They are also of a really decent size so you can make decent sized sand treats.

Lily got to playing with this straight away. She used the scoop to get the sand and started to fill an ice cream cone with it. You can squash quite a bit of sand into them and it is just like making a sand castle. Lily would fill up the mould, flatten it down with the scoop and then turn it out onto the sand. Then hit the scoop on the top a few times and lift. The moulds worked brilliantly and you were left with a really nicely shaped treat which didn't crumble at all. Lily was really impressed and she made quite a few and between us we made all sorts.

This toy is really good for sensory play as you are using your hands lots to touch the sand, but it also good for gross motor skills as your child practices scooping and filling the moulds.

Lily loved this toy so much that she has been asking for it every day and it has really been keeping her occupied. I do think it really is a great idea to be able to bring sand play inside the house with out all the mess.

But when I say without the mess, I would admit that this toy isn't compleatly mess free and it does need some parental supervision.

I did find that little bits of it did get everywhere, and while it was really easy to clean up from a table, it wasn't from a carpet. On the table you simply get some more of the sand and roll it over the other sand and it picks it up. But I did find that if any fell onto the carpet you had to be really careful for it not to get smeared into it. Not easy when you have a child who won't stay still and decides to rub the bits that had fallen onto her top onto the floor and then stand in it.

But I did manage to get it out the carpet with a bit of hardcore hoovering. I then bought a plastic matt to put under her table and so if you have carpets, I would really recommend getting one of those.

But apart from the slight mess left on my carpet, I thought that this toy was wonderful and Lily really loves it.

After you have finished playing with the sand, scoop it back into the bag it came in and pop it back into the box. The sand is made so then it doesn't dry out. Which I think is great!

You can head to the John Adams website to see more about Sands Alive and also check out there other sets. 

What would your child enjoy about Sands Alive?

Now onto the competition. John Adams have kindly let me give away a Paw Patrol Felt Set, Enter on the Gleam app below for your chance to WIN! 

*Ends 14/12/17*

Win a Paw Patrol Felt Set