Former IPA Japan Branch Representative (2012-2021) and the head of the NPO Fukushima SAND-STORY, which promotes the recovery of Fukushima Prefecture after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 by encouraging children playing with sand. I have been teaching the history and methods of early childhood education, the relationship between children's play and learning, for 40 years at university. When my daughter was three years old, I saw her playing in a sandpit for nearly an hour by herself, concentrating on her play. This was the moment that I began to investigate the importance and appeal of sand play for children over the next 35 years. In particular, through exploring the history of sandppits in Japan, the US and Europe, I found that sandpits were historical social innovators that respected the importance of children's existence and play. Today, however, sandpits in parks in Japan are rapidly declining. I consider this to be a crisis in the disappearance of the historical view of children and play. Therefore, my colleagues and I are now organising the ‘Parent-Child Sand Play’ programme across Japan to expand the understanding of the importance of sandpit and sand play. I hope to enrich children's everyday lives through sand play, a favourite of them.