Does your child need Messy Play?
Is your child seeking out ways to make messes? Does your child make a mess with food? Does your child need/want ways to get messy?
If you said yes to any of the above questions your child may need ways to have fun messy play. They may be seeking that sensory input. In my opinion it is something all kids need to have.
If your child is the complete opposite and never makes a mess with food. They always want hands and face washed immediately after eating or getting dirty they probably need messy play even though you think they wouldn’t like it.
What is Messy Play? Messy Play is a fun way to learn using your senses. In doing this kind of play your child can get the sensory information needed in learning and exploring different types of objects, textures and the environment they are in.
This is usually done with things that can create a mess while playing with it. Usually this involves cleaning up dirty kids after the play. Have a space or area that this play can be done in that will be easy to clean up as well.
The sense of touch – Tactile sense, is very important for kids to explore. When touching and feeling different textures you are learning. You can figure out what things are hard, rough, soft, squishy, firm, smooth, slick, slimy, and etc. Using your sense of touch you can understand a lot of things including temperature, when something is hot or cold. Tactile learning is really hands on learning and should be offered to all kids.
Kids can have different responses to tactile stimulation. Tactile stimulation is the input you get when you touch something or when something touches you. How things feel when you touch it, when it touches you or when it is on your skin creates sensations that you may like or dislike. This stimulation to your skin activates your sense receptors that sends messages to your brain. Some kids will love the stimulation and want more. Those kids need opportunities to get that stimulation in good ways through messy play.
You may also have kids that do not like things touching their skin. They may not like to have dirty hands or be dirty. It’s not easy but those kids need to learn it’s okay to feel those different textures and objects. If you know your child is having a hard time with sensory stimulation where they do not want to touch different textures. Or if they avoid it at all costs or the opposite and they can never get enough stimulation. It might be worth talking to your doctor about it and possibly getting an Occupational Therapy evaluation for your child. The Occupational therapist can then give you help in addressing those issues and ways for you to help your child at home.
Messy play can incorporate your sense of smell, hearing, sight as well as touch. This type of play usually engages all your senses and is a great way for your child to learn and explore new things.
If working on fine motor or gross motor skills you can incorporate messy play into those activities as well. Check out those blogs as well for fun activities.
When to start messy play? Depending on what age your child is and their ability to participate in activities is up to you and your best judgment. I’d start messy play for babies when they are eating baby food. Don’t be the parent that won’t let their baby stick their fingers in their mouth while you are trying to feed them. let them touch the food feel it and get messy with it.
As your child gets older let them try feeding themselves and yes let them get messy. Wait till they are finished eating to wipe the food off of them so they can feel it on their skin. Let them be messy with food when they are a baby/toddler. That is the best messy play they can have at that age.
As toddlers get older they can be taught when its okay to be messy with food if it’s a messy play time. Or when it’s dinner time and that is not acceptable. You can set aside times that your child knows is messy play time.
How to distinguish messy play time? Having a certain table cloth mat or tarp that you always use for indoor messy play. That will help your kids know that messy play is okay on it. Your child will begin to understand when that special table cloth mat comes out it’s okay to be messy. And when that mat is not out it’s not okay to be messy. You could also have a bin with their old clothes or over sized t-shirts. When its time for messy play they can go get an extra large t-shirt or old shirt from the bin. That can help distinguish when they can get messy. Use the words messy play when you are allowing them to have it. Hearing that name will help them distinguish when they hear those words they can get messy.
As your child gets older and is walking around move messy play from food to other things like finger painting. Let them stick their fingers, hands, objects in the paint and play.
Before you start the messy play activities have these items ready:
- A good thick vinyl tablecloth that items won’t soak through. I prefer one with cloth on one side. Those seem to be the best for messy activities to clean and re-use. The cloth on the back side keeps it in place on the floor so there is less sliding.
- Old clothes that you designate as messy play clothes. Or an extra large t-shirt. Your child can get used to knowing they put those on to get messy and not their good clothes. When kids are little you can let them play in undies only or in bathing suits if older.
- Have a Place you designate for messy play time or the place figured out ahead of time. For indoor messy play I like the dinner table with mat/tablecloth or the kitchen floor with the mat/tablecloth. For some activities the bathtub works great.
- Messy play toys or Items you need for the messy play activity.
Messy play can take place outdoors also. Outdoors can be really great and vary depending on what you have outside and during the different seasons.
I will list some Messy Play Ideas that I think are great for kids. These activities will be broken down to Indoor Messy Play and Outdoor Messy Play.
As I’ve mentioned before use your best judgement on what your child should or should not do at their age level and ability. Always use caution when using small objects that could be a choking hazard and always supervise your child.
Indoor Messy Play: Or Messy Play activities at Home:
- Cool Whip – This is a fun messy play activity to start with as your child is learning but not ready for shaving cream. Your child has to understand that paint, shaving cream and other objects are not put in their mouth before you dive into all of those other activities. But you can use this activity to start using your mat and calling it messy play so they can begin to understand. Use this when your kids are older too. I’m sure they will enjoy it then also. You can use dry cereal and other snacks that your toddler or kid can eat. They can play with the different textures in the cool whip.
- Finger painting – Let your child use finger paints and create a work of art while exploring with tactile sensation of the ooey gooey slimy paint. You don’t have to stop with using just fingers, let them use their whole hands and feet even. Let them have different objects to use to paint with as well. If you are letting them put paint all over their body then have your table cloth on the floor. You can grade this and adapt this to different ages. As they get older let them use cut apples, oranges and other fruit or items to paint with. Let them explore the different markings and pictures they can make with different items.
- Shaving cream – Shaving cream is a fun way of exploring that wet foamy sensation on your hands. Some kids like my daughter may like to play with it on a mat. They can roll in it, cover their body in it and wipe it all over themself. This is a great activity to do in a bathtub also. A sponge or washcloth can be used for them to wipe the bathtub and tile with it and even help clean it up after playing. I suggest letting them be in their undies or a swimsuit to play, then after the play its bath time.
- Face paints or makeup bag – If your child finds ways of marking on themselves maybe put together a bag for just that. Put together a makeup bag/face paint bag and let them use it when it is messy play time. In that bag you can put face paint crayons, toe nail polish that you help them use (depending on age), lipstick, foundation, powder, blush, and any other items. Supervise your child and make sure they are old enough to understand they can’t eat it.
- Big bin of dry beans, rice and other items your kids can bury objects in and find. This is fun with small dinosaur toys, action figures or any other small toy or item. Play with this on the mat on the floor so the beans or rice won’t make as big of a mess.
- Play dough/ real dough you make – Kids love making things with dough. They can roll it, pinch it, squash it and knead it. If you have some items like a rolling pin, plastic dull play knife and other items they can have fun learning how to cut, flatten, and roll the dough. This is a great time to have a tea party and let them use their little plates, cups, plastic wear and make food to pretend eat. You can even set out flour and water and let them experiment with mixing it together to make a paste or dough to play with. Another fun activity is to make dough ornaments. They can create objects or put the dough in molds to make ornaments. Dry or bake them and then let your kids paint and decorate them.
- Liquid play – If your child is interested in mixing liquids together let them have time for it. You can have some different bowls – clear bowls are the best for viewing, a pitcher with water and some objects they can put in the water to change the color. Depending on age you could let them use skittles or other candy with a color coating to drop in water and see it change color. Using some clear carbonated liquid beverage that is fizzy adds in some fun experiments. Dish soap can be fun to use to make foamy water to help clean up the bowls after the experiments are done. Older kids may like to play with plastic test tubes and funnels.
- Slime – Make and play with slime. Slime can be fun and messy. You can follow a slime recipe and make your own or buy some already made. let your kids play with the slime. They could put little objects in the slime like buttons and then try pulling them all out. It could be slime monster time where they bring in their little people or action figures and the figures walk through slime or get slimed by the slime monster.
- Fruit/Veggie messy play – Let your kids explore different fruits and vegetables. Cut open a big watermelon and let your kids use an ice cream scoop to cut out watermelon to put in a big bowl to share. Let them then put their hands in the mostly empty watermelon and and feel and play with it. Same goes for a Pumpkin, cantaloupe or any other fruit or vegetable. They can dig their hands in the item and feel the different textures. For a fun fine motor activity have your kids use their fingers and pick out the seeds and put them in a small container. Let your kids touch, play with, taste, smell and try out different fruits and vegetables on these messy play days. Give them the chance to squish a banana in their hands or a grape with their fingers. If you let your kids explore and taste these items through play they may realize they like it, or get used to the texture by feeling it and then try tasting it. Just remind them that when it’s messy play time they can do this but normally when eating we don’t squish bananas in our hands.
Outdoor messy play may seem like just regular outside play to some. But to others it’s the play they dread because they don’t like or want messy dirty kids.
Kids need their outside play and yes messy messy play is great for them.
If messy play is hard for you to allow your kids to have then maybe compromise and schedule a time period for that play. Maybe allow them to get as messy as they want then either hose them down outside and in for a bath or wipe them down and in for a bath. If you need to have messy play in the morning and then a bath or in the evening before bath and bed time then schedule that. Just make sure that you allow your kids to have that sensory messy play time.
Outdoor Messy play:
- Sand Box or sand table – A sand box is great for that tactile stimulation. let them play with toys and items in the sand box maybe even a small area where you let them play with wet sand. Let them explore wet and dry sand and how they can play with it. Bury their feet in sand and see how they like or dislike it. Build sandcastles or bury objects in the sand to find.
- Water table – Having a water table outside is great because kids can definitely get really messy with it and get themselves very wet in the process. You can have different items for them to pour water into, onto, or through.
- Mud/dirt/rocks/sticks – Let your kids walk and play in the mud, grass, rocks, sand and dirt. Walking barefoot through the yard is great for your child and even yourself. When walking on the ground barefoot you can feel the earth beneath your feet. You feel the different textures and temperatures your walking on. Walking barefoot actually helps with balance and stability so if your child is having issues with falling down try letting them walk barefoot more and definitely barefoot outside. Let your kids make mud pies, non edible food with mud, dirt, sticks and rocks. Kids enjoy having tea parties with non edible items and imaginative play. Your kids could build or make things with the items they find on the ground.
- Raking/Playing in leaves – raking leaves and building piles to jump in. This is a seasonal activity. When you have leaves falling let your child help rake the leaves in piles and then let them jump and play in them. Just be cautious of sticks and make sure they don’t get into your jumping pile. Yes they will get a little dirty and smelly and maybe some leaves in their clothes but it can be a really fun activity. let them throw the leaves in the air and lay in them. They will get so much sensory input through this play feeling the different textures of the leaves.
- Snow – playing in the snow is great. This wet messy play is fun for all. Make sure that your kids are wearing the appropriate clothing for the weather and let them have fun playing in the snow. They can make snowballs and throw at each other or at objects you have set up for them. Snowmen are fun to make and can be a family effort. Snow angels are fun to lay down in the snow and make. You can even give your child some artificial or food colors and color the snow.
- Outside chalk or chalk paint – This is fun from toddlers to adults. Who doesn’t like making big chalk art. Drawing outside incorporates all your senses and is in a different environment then coloring or drawing inside. Help draw/paint cities where they can ride their little bikes or push cars on. With assistance they can draw streets and cities with stores like a gas station, grocery store, mall, hospital, school, and fire and police station. That actually could be a long activity incorporating so much learning and fun. When your child is school age try doing homework or learning through chalk on the sidewalk.
- Bubbles – Making bubbles is fun for all ages. You can have the small wands making little bubbles to the giant wands making giant bubbles. Bubbles could be done inside if you are okay with a possible sticky mess. You can buy bubbles or make them. Some bubbles pop fast and easy and there is a kind that you can purchase that actually stays together for a longer time period or till you pop them.
- Rainy day – After a rain storm join your child for a fun messy play activity. Walk through the puddles and let them splash in them. Barefoot is best for that extra stimulation. Walking in mud puddles are an added adventure.
- Self Car wash – Let your kids help out washing your car. They would enjoy spreading the sudsy water with a sponge on your car. Spraying the water on the car to rinse it and you would be fun too.
- Sprinkler fun – If you have a pool I’m sure your kids get plenty of water play but playing in a sprinkler is a different type of play. Let your kids run barefoot through the grass and through the water sprinkler. There are many different types of water sprinklers out there and can be a great summer fun activity. Buy one that won’t hurt their feet if they accidentally step on it.
- Water balloons – Water balloons are fun for kids to throw at each other or play games with. If you want another twist on water balloons you can try water balloon art. Fill the balloons with water and food coloring and let your kids throw them on the sidewalk, driveway or fence. Be aware though that this can stain the cement, wood fence or kid and will take a while to fade away. Or make sure that you find some non staining food coloring. Finger paint could also be put in balloons mixed with a little water. Just make sure your okay with that coloring your fence or sidewalk till the rain washes it away.
With all those messy play activities and suggestions I think you can plan out some great messy play days.
For those kids not wanting messy play, try giving them opportunities for it. Let them watch you and other kids engage in that activity. Don’t force them to join in as more than likely they will be curious and try when they are ready.
Start messy play at an early age with food and items that won’t hurt them and are age appropriate. And of course always supervise and join them in messy play.
As they age you can transition into other fun messy play activities. Be creative, let your children be creative and let them explore and learn through their senses.
Now go and have some sensory messy fun with your kids! And make it a daily activity if you can.
I’d love to hear any comments or stories from you on how this has helped your kids or other fun messy play activities you do.