Did you know that cinnamon mixed into a sandbox keeps bugs away?

I can’t remember where I first heard this tip, but boy am I glad I followed it!

I’ve spent so much time over the years scooping various bugs and spiders out of my kids’ sandbox, that I was rather reluctant to ever let them play with it.

When my oldest was younger we had a large one she could sit in, but after we moved, we got a tabletop set that works with water or sand or both.  (We have this adjustable sand and water table.  It has just sand in it right now.)

My girls love it, but it was always infested with bugs.

Then I remembered the tip about bugs not liking cinnamon.

So I generously sprinkled the spice over the sand in the sandbox and mixed it in with a toy rake.

The smell was AMAZING.

Seriously.

We even found some {really} old cinnamon sticks in the pantry that weren’t really any good for baking any more, so I gave my girls two of them to play with.  They’d use them to stir the sand or pretend they were sticks or flag poles, etc.

The point is:  the bugs went away.

And they stayed away.

I also gave the girls some empty spice containers to play with.  They love filling them with sand and “cooking” with them.

Just be careful about letting your kids shake actual cinnamon into the sandbox, since it can easily get into their eyes and be inhaled.  You don’t want that.

But they helped me to stir it into the sand, and, ever since, the sandbox smells like crumb cake or cinnamon rolls.

Sweet, bug-free cinnamon rolls.