Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon

We love playing with sand – though outside is better so you don’t have that just-been-to-the-beach feeling under your feet! For this activity, we first made some coloured sand using this idea – Kids Craft Room coloured sand.

We then used this sand to make the Grand Canyon.  I had a clear plastic tub, and my eldest layered up the sand on the bottom using different colours, and then made a space for the Colorado River.

I decided to take this further before putting some water in for the river. We watched a clip on the Hoover Dam – Hoover Dam video – and then talked about how we might dam up our river. We collected some stones and twigs from the garden, and attempted to create a dam (our natural ‘Hoover Dam’!) in our tub.

We tried it out. The first attempt didn’t work, but the second was much more successful. We decided, though, that beavers were much better at this dam-making business than we were!