Suddenly, I started seeing it everywhere online and in toy stores: play sand, kinetic sand, super sand, magic sand. Because there was so much variety, I hesitated for a long time about what to do, but then I came across a set of sample pots at Toys42Hands that allowed us to see which one we liked best. After thoroughly testing them, the conclusion was that RelevantPlay's kinetic sand was the favorite, so I bought a 1 kg box, along with the inflatable sandbox and the baker's trio. Lotte loves making and decorating cakes.

The package arrived last week and it was an instant hit! She's already played with it for hours in just a few days, and it could have been even more if we hadn't occasionally had to eat and sleep...

On Wednesday afternoon, I inflated the sandbox, put the sand in it, laid out the cake molds, and also, to decorate the cakes, some flat glass beads in several colors.

It was an immediate great success. Lotte immediately started enthusiastically 'kneading the dough', making cakes, and trying out the different shapes. I even joined in for a while (I couldn't resist the temptation) and started decorating the cakes with the glass beads. Lotte wanted to do that too, of course, and she made beautiful cakes. With the plastic knife and cake server from the baker's trio, she cut pieces of cake and proudly offered them to me. And of course, I deliciously 'play-devoured' them!

What she also really enjoyed doing was hiding the glass beads in mountains of sand and

After an hour and a half of wonderful play, unfortunately, things had to be tidied up because we needed the table for dinner, but otherwise, she would have happily continued playing for a long time.

Two days later, on Friday afternoon, she immediately knew what she wanted to do: bake cakes again with the 'indoor sand'. And this time, she decided that the Playmobil figures could also join in. Because I wasn't entirely keen on that due to the articulated parts, the Barbapapa figures were allowed to play instead. I had also brought out the goldminer's set, and Lotte had taken the plastic ice cream cones and scoop from her play shop.

First, she baked many more cakes and made ice creams, and presented them to the Barbapapa family. Later, we also added some cookie cutters to make delicious cookies and, of course, decorate them with the glass beads.

Then she decided that she could also bury the Barbapapa figures in the sand and hide them in the containers and tube of the goldminer's set.

This time too, after more than an hour and a half, tidying up was done with fresh reluctance.

By the way, cleaning up with kinetic sand goes very well. Sometimes some sand does get outside the sandbox, but it's very easy to pick up. If you pick up a clump of sand, you can use it to pick up the rest: small clumps and crumbs are then attracted to that larger clump as if by magic. Even on our gravel floor, where normally everything immediately disappears between the small stones, you can pick up the clumps well without all sorts of small crumbs falling off and disappearing into the floor. And on the table, you just rub everything together and can pick it up in one go without any effort.

Should you want to bake cakes and cookies with kinetic sand at home, here's a warning: I had also used a few silicone cupcake molds, but apparently, you can't use them with kinetic sand! With all other molds, the sand comes off without any problem, but with the silicone molds, it simply does not come off. No matter how much I rubbed, it just stuck more. Eventually, I rinsed the molds under the tap, which I thought was a shame for the sand that was still sticking to them, but it was the only way to get them clean again.

If you don't have glass beads, you can of course use all sorts of other things to decorate the cakes: beads, buttons, straws cut into pieces as candles, pawns or tokens from games, colored matchsticks or popsicle sticks, and so on.