ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author describes the approach she have called sand tray play in order to distinguish it from Dora M. Kalff's sandplay therapy. In the activities of forming a landscape, populating it with tangible objects, and breathing life into those objects, sand tray play is scaffolding the language making process. Research demonstrates that skill in the use of de-contextualized language is a key predictor of academic success. Like its expressive language counterpart, listening is a set of skills that directly influences the social, emotional, and behavioral development, as well as academic success of the child. As sandplayers encounter the blank canvas of the tray and begin to let their hands create a world, the music attunes them to an order that lies unseen beneath the hurly burly of the school day. The sand world itself functions much as the picture in a children's storybook, which orients the storywriter with a reference and jumping off point for the narrative.