Have you seen the commercials for the toy called "Aqua Sand"? It looks fun, right? There's an aquarium with a cute scene in it, and then you squirt this sand in and you can shape it to create amazing underwater sculptures! But wait, there's more! When you are done you simply scoop the sand out and place it back in the squirt bottles because, gasp!, it's DRY!! This way, you can use it again and again for hours of sculpting fun. It comes with two exciting colors of sand with which to create your amazing underwater sculptures, a sculpting tool and a scoop, as well as a funnel for each bottle of sand. Oh the joy!
Apparently my niece had seen the commercial. So, yesterday when she went with her family and my daughter on a trip to the shopping mecca of Mason City, she SAW the aqua sand and enthused enough about it to earn herself and my daughter a set. How nice! Naturally, my daughter was equally enthused. She got it out first thing this morning. She was a bit disappointed by the size of the aquarium, but that was ok. We tried opening the sand tubes by pulling off the foil seal and that was futile. If you buy this toy, just get out a knife and punch the seals. Ok, then I filled up the tank, careful to leave some room for the sand. Ready to go.
Aqua Sand sucks!! She could not make anything except mostly a mess. The sand has no "off" mode, so it just keeps pouring into the tank all willy nilly. Also, I did not leave ENOUGH room for the sand, so it started to overflow. Dumb me, I had put the thing on the kitchen table. It quickly got moved to the counter right next to the sink. A lot of the sand floats along the top of the water, and it clings to the side of the tank, making it hard to even see what you might have been trying to create in the way of a random sculpture. Oh, well. She did have fun pouring it all in there.
After messing around in a water tank with sand in it, it was time to take the sand out. This is the worst. They give you a scoop that is about a teaspoon, so you get to remove a cup or more of sand, one teaspoon at a time and then try to pour it in a tiny funnel. Sand all over the counter. Especially if your six-year-old insists on doing some of the sand removal. And I do not know why they even bother with separating the sand into different colors because it all ends up in a big swirly mess.
Thus ends my review of "aqua sand" - horrid toy of the week.
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1 comment:
Hey Mia... such a shame about your experience. My 7 year old loves it... We've mastered the use of the sand so that nothing floats at the top and you can actually see what you are creating underwater..
Just hold the bottle of sand until it is in position at the bottom of the tank where you want to make something. Only then start sqeezing the bottle and swirling it in the way you want to make something. It's pretty cool once you get the hang of it.
P.s The long nozzle is great for creating towers.
xoxSavannah
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