Why we Love Messy Play
I was that class teacher that cleaners hated. At the end of the day, my classroom always ended up looking like a bomb had gone off in it even though we (staff and children included) had attempted to tidy and clean. My motto was ‘a messy class meant it had been a great day of learning.’ Messy or sensory play was one of my favourite lessons as a teacher. Not only was it incredibly easy and quick to set up but the learning throughout the session was invaluable. My pupils learnt more during one of these sessions than they did in any structured lesson I had spent hours planning.
So, here are my top 5 reasons why I love messy play so much
1. As a teacher, pupils and staff had so much fun in messy play sessions. As a Mummy, messy play is just as much fun for me and my son. During my teaching days I was a huge advocate that the adults, including myself had to sit at the table and join in and my TAs never disappointed me! The adults joining in with the messy play enabled us to all have a shared experience together. This helped us to form good, fun and, most importantly, trusting relationships with each other. As a Mummy I will always join in with a messy play session with my son because he learns more with me there and it gives us a chance to have fun together. My 2 year old’s emotions explode out of him continually which can be exhausting for both of us. I find that if the morning has been fraught, a messy play session can calm both of us and bring us back together.
2. Now in the 9 years I was in the classroom there was never any pressure for my pupils to interact with the messy play in a certain way. And this is important. Not all children and adults like to touch slime, so they don’t need to. If they wanted to just look at it, smell it or poke it - that was completely up to them. I would always make sure there were spoons available if they felt more comfortable exploring the mess like that. I had one pupil who only wanted to touch the messy resources with a glove on, so this is how he did messy play in my classroom. Messy play is all about inspiring curiosity, imagination, exploration and independence. The moment you make a child interact with the sensory resource in a certain way you are killing the fun, their curiosity and imagination. Messy play is the ultimate open-ended activity as there is never a right or wrong way to explore and play with the resources. As a child gets older and more confident, the way they interact with the messy resources changes and you will see them start to use their imagination to bring lentils (for example) to life. They are no longer orange lentils but are transferred into a magical walkway which will take them to see a unicorn.
3. My 2-year-old is not a huge fan of touching wet messy play ingredients but they do form some of our messy play set ups because I want to expose him to as many different smells, touches, tastes and sights as possible. So, I always make sure there are spoons, jugs and bowls out for him so that he doesn’t need to touch the wet raw materials if he doesn’t want to. Exposing children to as many different smells, touches, tastes and sights can help if your little one is a fussy eater. They say that children who are exposed to messy play are more willing to try new and different textures in their mouth. In my experience I have found this to be true. Since doing messy play more than once a week my 2-year-old has started to dip his food in the sauce which accompanies our dinner. He isn’t happy if the sauce is all mixed up on his plate but small steps are encouraging.
4. In my opinion a child is never too young to start messy / sensory play. Younger babies can explore home-made sensory bottles or zip lock bags which are so easy and quick to make. As soon as my son could sit up in a high chair, we were making mess together on the table and then, when he was crawling, we did messy play on the floor. I believe that messy play is such an important activity for developing brains because not only does it build nerve connections but it also enables young minds to develop their sensory processing capabilities. As alluded to in a previous blog post ‘Looking at Behaviour’ we have 7 senses: visual (sight), auditory (hearing), tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), vestibular (balance) and proprioception (where we are time and space) and they help us to perceive the world around us. These senses are bombarded continually throughout a typical day and messy play can help a young mind to process all of these senses in order make sense of the world around them.
5. Messy play is fantastic for developing social interaction and speech and language skills. Firstly, messy play is a sociable activity and therefore fosters social interaction. Throughout a messy play session we need to wait our turn, share, ask for a particular sensory resource, communicate what we like or don’t like. Don’t forget a child doesn’t need to be able to speak in order to communicate all of the above. Watch your little one communicate with their body language and then respond appropriately. For example if your baby pulls their hands away quickly an appropriate response is “oh you didn’t like it.” Furthermore, by you describing sensations, colours, sounds, smells, textures to your child you can help them build their vocabulary. Talking through what you are doing and asking open ended questions such as “I wonder what would happen if I poured this flour onto the black tray?” you are providing excellent speech and language opportunities, encouraging thinking skills and a growth mindset. The more interesting the vocabulary is that you use, the richer your child’s language will become.
Now let’s not pretend that messy play is an activity which is simple to tidy up. It is not. The clue is in the title but with a little prep and planning the mess can be contained.
here are our 5 Top Tips to make Messy Play less stressful for you:
1. Choose where you will do messy play
If the weather allows the perfect place to do messy play is of course outside. When my son was little, I would do messy play in his high chair and put the resources on the tray. As soon as he was on the move, I moved messy play on the floor and into a tray like this one. Tuff Trays are also fantastic for little ones to do messy play in because they can crawl, walk and even jump into it.
2. Cover the floor
I always put a shower curtain down on the floor to catch as much of the mess which is removed from the tray as possible. When messy play is finished the shower curtain can be folded up, shaken over the bin and then put in the washing machine.
3. Keep a wet flannel handy.
I make sure I have a flannel close by just in case any mess ends up on the floor or wall and it needs a quick wipe down!
4. wear old clothes and keep a second pair of clean clothes handy
Once messy play has finished I strip my son and change him into clean clothes and throw the dirty ones straight into the washing machine. This means I don’t need to take him upstairs in his messy clothes and risk getting the carpet dirty.
