There is nothing better than a little bit of messy play, and there are so many benefits to it too! Physical development, Cognitive development, Language development, Creative development, Social and Emotional development. Messy play is all around us and I don’t just mean your kids toys all over the joint. From water in the bath or sink, to playdough and paint, there are so many ways to have fun with mess! My personal favourite is Cornflour!
You will need:
Cornflour
Water
Plastic spiders/bats/toys
Green food colouring (or orange, purple, black would also work)
Shallow-ish tray
Simply pour a box of cornflour into a bowl and add water and mix. There are no specific quantities to this, just keep going until you’re happy with the consistency. By mixing cornflour and water together you create a weird, gloopy mess. That’s the easiest way to put it, a big gloopy mess. When you press it hard or add force to it its a solid, but when you slowly run your fingers through it, or pick it up, it becomes a liquid. Even as an adult I find gloop fascinating,Science and play in one!
To try and make this messy play experience a little more Halloween themed, I added a few drops of Green food colouring, as well as some spiders and some Bats. (If your child is a little older, you can add all sorts of things, googly eyes for example) You have to give it a good mix, and it can take a bit of oumph to get it to combine, but it will. Pop it in a bowl or a tin of some sort, lay a messy mat down and you’re all set to go!
At first Molly wasn’t sure about it. But with a lot of encouragement, she was sticking her hands in, picking put the toys and flapping her hands all over the place. There for, resulting in cornflour particles being flung around everywhere, no messy mat could save this mess!! We have started to do things like letters and numbers with Molly, so we were counting the spiders. She would point to each one and wait for us to count, then when we got the 3 she would stop and clap her hands for a job well done.
Another great thing about this activity is that its not the end of the world if your tiny human decides to taste a bit. Molly tried some, but soon realized it didn’t taste all that great!
The clean up wasn’t as bad as we first thought. The bits that got flung dried up and pretty much turned into powder as we wiped them. The messy mat got rinsed off out in the garden and all items were quick and easy to clean. Baby included!
Like most play activities, you can change and adapt them to fit the theme you want. Get creative and have fun!
