Make Your Own Mini-Japanese Sand Garden

I've wanted a Japanese sand garden in my classroom for years now.  I finally had one donated, but the poor thing was lost in the flood before we had a chance to use it :(  It finally dawned on me that I had enough on hand to create one of my own!

Make Your Own Mini-Japanese Sand Garden

The container to hold the sand is nothing fancy -just an 8" square baking pan.  I used leftover sand from other work to fill it.

 We had rock and shell collections to choose from as well.

The small wooden spoon was in my supply of utensils, but I made the other tools out of craft sticks and cereal boxes.

The masking tape on some of the tools?  It was added by a student in an attempt to mend them!

The children find this work very soothing.  In fact it is one of the most popular works in the classroom right now!  Some of the sand finds its way outside of the box, but overall the kids are more gentle with it than I ever would have imagined. It is a fantastic activity to complement Asia studies :)