Explore our catalogue of award-winning activities and games

Busy Things hosts over 1600 curriculum-linked activities and games for early years and primary aged children. A school subscription also includes lots of features and tools for teachers that promise to save planning time.  Take a free trial to have a proper play or book a demo here. 

Pretty Things: Sandscape

Hold or drag to draw with falling sand. Draw props such as containers, trees and ramps to catch the falling sand. Erase the props and watch the sand fall.

Use the buttons in the top left to save, load or print your images.

You can use this activity with the other Pretty Things activities for even more amazing results! In the left-hand margin are other works you have made during the session. Select one to open it in the canvas area and work on top of it. NOTE: These will not be saved automatically when you finish your session on Busy Things.



Discussion points

Age 3-4, Age 4, Age 5, Age 7-9Age 5-6, Age 6-7

  • What is happening to the sand?
  • What does real-life sand feel like to touch?
  • Can you make the sand fall slowly?
  • Can you create a picture which holds lots of sand?
  • What does real-life sand feel like to touch?


Teaching tips:

Age 3-4, Age 4, Age 5Age 5-6, Age 6-7Age 7-9

Develop early scientific skills by encouraging children to look at cause and effect by asking ‘What might happen if…’ type questions.

Children could use funnels, spinners and tools to play in real life sand to develop fine motor skills and investigate cause and effect in real life.
Develop scientific skills by asking children to ask and answer questions about what they notice when they use certain tools with the sand.

Children might like to play in real-life sand using tools to experiment with moving different amounts. How can they move a lot in one go?
Develop scientific skills by pairing this activity with a ‘separating substances’ practical task.

Children could try separating objects, like sand and pebbles using a sieve. They could try separating sand and sugar using a sieve and seeing what happens or separate sand and water through filtering.
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Nursery

 £110+VAT yr

  Unlimited children in a single nursery

  Single shared login

  xx games for independent play

  Areas of Learning?

  Printable worksheets

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FREE TRIAL

Your free trial includes

  • access to 1600+ of fun educational activities and games
  • Create an area just for your class (school version)
  • Track activities and send feedback (school version)
  • Customisable games and activities targeting core maths, literacy and phonics skills
  • Creative activities working with colours, shapes and sounds
  • Busy Code - a whole suite of activities and guides for teaching children how to code
  • A custom phonics and maths worksheet maker
  • Curriculum-links and activity search
  • Pupil timelines - see what your pupils have been doing
  • Set assignments and collate results
  • Play on desktop computers, laptops and tablets

 

Schools

Schools have no limit on the number of pupils that can use Busy Things simultaneously. 

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Families 

The family version allows up to 5 children to play at once.

 

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