Make Sand Globes and Create With Them

Sand globe making feels like magic, and it looks like magic. The process of making spheres from just sand and water feels great, and the product looks great.

Sand globes are being made all over the world as part of Sand Globes Worldwide, and photos of sand globe creations are being shared every day worldwide using  #sandglobes on Instagram. You will see tall towers, arches, sand globes as faces, and more!

People of all ages love making sand globes, and you can learn how in 3 minutes by watching this How Make Sand Globes video. The best sand to use is clean, fine-grained, has no seaweed or shells, and has rough grains (not rounded grains like in most deserts). Use the “airborne” tossing technique in the video (don’t try to pack it like a snowball, that just makes it weak). (For very young children or those who can’t throw and catch, passing a small globe hand-to-hand works well instead of tossing it.)

To learn more about the history of sand globes, and how people are using them to create and play together, see this video about the Sand Globes Worldwide Project.

If you make sand globes where others see you, then be ready to teach others. Sand globe making almost always spreads on a beach!

Sand globe activities like juggling, passing globes in a circle, creating sand globe racetracks, and other games add to the communal fun.

Bonus info for curious people: The “glue” that holds the globe together is the intermolecular force that attracts water molecules to each other and to the grains of sand. When making the globes, we throw them in the air, and this causes liquifaction, similar to what happens to some areas of the earth during an earthquake. In this liquified airborne state, the globe seeks the lowest energy configuration: a sphere. See this NASA video of a water sphere in space to get an idea of the strength of attraction that water has to itself, and how that attraction causes a sphere to form. After multiple cycles of liquifaction, the grains of sand in the globe settle in a configuration that maximizes the surfaces in contact, making the globe strong once the excess water is removed with dry sand.