Messy Play

Messy play has to be one of my favourite activities. Its so flexible and the variety of different things you can use is endless. A great sensory activity for any age!  This has always been a popular activity throughout my many years working in Nurseries and also one of the messiest! In the warmer months you can take it outside which means mess can easily be hosed down!  These activities are great to encourage lots of descriptive talk about what they see and feel.
Heres a few of our favourites:

Here we used some Jelly and Spaghetti coloured with food colouring.

Baked beans.

Crushed Ice cubes- 

Shaving foam

Ice cubes (Coloured with food colouring)

As you can see, over the years we have used various different trays/pots/paddling pools to hold the messy play. The paddling pool works well, although can be tricky for younger ones to climb out of ( however sometimes that not a bad thing! :))  Larger tupperware pots are good for smaller amounts and more contained play.

We have since bought the black tray that you see in many of the pictures. These are widely used in nurseries for such activities.  They are called Tough spot trays. They can be a bit costly in some of the educational catalogues but have discovered that these are also exactly the same as the trays that builders use to mix cement with! (often called Mixing/Cement spots/trays)  Check out your local builders yard and they are easily half the price! I picked mine up for about £15 delivered. As you will see from many of my photos its very versatile tray indeed. I have many people ask where they can buy such a tray.

None of the items used have cost very much at all. The shaving foam and beans etc is just a supermarket value own brand etc.

You can add anything you wish to the activity too. The girls favourite of the toys animals have joined in alot again.  As in other activities you can extend the activity by getting the children to wash/clean the animals/cars etc afterwards, also helping you to clean up :)

A tip is that I would add here is to leave plenty of time for these activities as it generally takes longer to clear up than you think! :)

If you do try any of the activities on my blog, please do let me know how they went and if the children enjoyed them!