Sensory Play Without the Mess

The clue is in the name, messy play is messy! You can embrace sensory play and accept that you’re going to have some cleaning up to do at the end of creative activities, covering up surfaces to minimise the mess. However, there are probably times when you want a sensory activity that doesn’t involve too much of a cleanup operation once the fun is over. Playdough and outdoor water play tick these boxes, but it’s easy to fall into a rut of always going to the same options for clean messy play.  If you want to mix things up for your kids, why not try out the following suggestions for less messy sensory activities. These cleaner options for sensory play are also a good bet if your little ones don’t like getting their hands dirty.

Image by Lisasolonynko via Morguefile

Fun with items from your store cupboard

Although the likes of tinned custard and spaghetti are great materials for babies and toddlers to explore, you’re not going to escape the mess with these edible materials. On the other hand, dried pasta, rice, lentils, couscous and oats are ideal for taking a good chunk of the messy out of sensory play. Small children will love scooping up these dry foods and pouring them through funnels, moving them from one container to another and arranging them into patterns. Your little ones will also enjoy the skin feel as they dance on lentils or trickle couscous over their skin. If you use a plastic sheet or tarp, once your tots have had their fill of exploration, you can simply scoop up dry foods using a serving spoon or spatula.

A twist on water play

Besides adding food colouring to water or using a variety of utensils, youngsters can enjoy water play with a difference when they have a go at washing up. They’ve probably seen you wash the dishes tens of times, so they’ll enjoy the chance to role play, and like sensory play, let’s pretend activities enhance tots’ development. If you have a step-up, you can use your kitchen sink for playing wash up. Simply place a plastic bowl with soapy water and one with water to rinse in the sink and provide a tea towel for drying. Let your little ones choose whether they wash a plastic tea set, safe utensils or their toys. If you aren’t able to use a sink, set up the bowls outside, or on a wet day, run the activity on a wipe clean floor.

Image by Krosseel via Morguefile

Explore natural items

The fun of this activity comes in two parts, as your kids will enjoy collecting items for their nature box, as well as exploring them afterwards. You could collect natural objects from your garden, the beach, when out on a woodland walk, or from anywhere else that might have items of interest. Examples of additions to your children’s nature sensory box include autumn leaves, pine cones, twigs, stones, shells, feathers, sheaves of wheat or corn, and grasses. For preschool kids who are beyond putting objects in their mouth, you can also include items like acorns and edible berries such as rosehips and rowan. Once you’ve gathered the natural objects together, there are various ways your little ones can explore the collection. If you have a baby, you can simply use your finds as a treasure basket for them to investigate. Alternatively, toddlers and preschoolers might enjoy making a leaf collage or sticking other items to make a picture. You can also incorporate natural items into sand and water play.

Lock in the mess

With a zip lock bag, taped as an extra precaution, you can contain the mess of items like paint, jelly and water thickened with cornflour. Youngsters will enjoy squishing the materials inside the sealed bag and drawing shapes with their fingers. For extra interest, you can put other additions in the bag such as buttons, sequins, glitter, dried beans and lentils. Little ones will enjoy poking at the inclusions and moving them around the bag, though you should still carefully supervise young children with this activity in case the bag bursts.

These are just four examples of sensory activities that let you control the mess, but there are many more possibilities. Perhaps you have some favourite activities with minimal clearing up required that you’d like to share?

Make Paint Using 3 Common Kitchen Ingredients

Recently I bought a pack of Crayola washable and non-toxic paint and I’m sure many of you have done the same. The pack cost around £5 for four 240ml bottles, which was the cheapest I could fine online at the time. No doubt we’ll soon get through the paints, so I think we’ll try making our own paint again. I previously tried a finger paint recipe, but the end product was just too thick for painting, even though we still had some fun and got creative with the brightly coloured mush. Since then, I’ve found an alternative homemade paint recipe, which I used to represent ice cream sauce at messy play last week. The consistency looked ideal for painting with a brush and uses just three ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen.

Image by Prawny via Morguefile

If you’d like to give this paint a go too, see the recipe below and save the next squeezy bottle of ketchup or mayonnaise you finish for storing your paint. The recipe makes around 400ml of paint, so a 500ml bottle is ideal if you’re making just one colour. For a gluten-free version, you can replace wheat flour with cornflour.

1.       Mix one cup each of flour, salt and water in a jug, stirring well to produce a thin paste

2.       Add food colouring of your choice and mix, adding a little at a time to reach the shade you’re after

3.       Pour into your bottle, using a funnel, if you have one, to avoid spills

Enjoy!

The Wonders of Cornflour Gloop

At our first messy play group, one of the materials we explored was blue cornflour gloop, using it to represent seawater on our beach. There’s something special about cornflour gloop in that it doesn’t behave like you’d expect from a fluid. Although on first inspection the gloop appears to flow, if you touch it, the gloop thickens and with enough pressure becomes a solid. That’s the science over with!

Cornflour gloop in action!

Little kids – and adults too – are often mesmerised by this special fluid, making cornflour gloop a great material to use during sensory play. Even better, it’s so easy to make, as a coloured cornflour gloop recipe only has three ingredients and doesn’t require any heating.

If you’d like to make cornflour gloop at home, simply mix a 250g pack of cornflour with 200ml (7 fluid oz) of water, before adding liquid food colouring of your choice. You and your little ones are then ready to explore cornflour gloop’s amazing properties!

Using Food for Messy Play - Yes or No?

Sand, water, soil, paint and other craft supplies are popular materials for messy play, but what about food? Certainly, providers of messy play in West Cumbria and elsewhere use food items in their sensory activities, and when searching the internet for messy play ideas, I came across countless sensory trays set up with food. The first session for messy play near Whitehaven I’m planning is almost entirely food based too. However, using food for messy play is controversial, with some parents preferring to avoid the association between food and play. If I’m honest, I’m not entirely comfortable using food either, but it does offer certain advantages over other materials. So what are the main issues surrounding food in sensory play?

Using food appears wasteful

With over 1.1. million emergency food parcels given out in the UK by the Trussel Trust’s food banks during the last year, playing with food can does seem wasteful. Whether it’s rice, pasta, cereal, beans or custard, the food used in messy play could potentially have been eaten by a family in need. However, while food play perhaps doesn’t appear to value or respect foodstuffs, perhaps sensory play with food isn’t quite as wasteful as it first appears. Firstly, edible materials used in sensory play may not be used as intended, but they aren’t just being discarded; the food is simply used in a different way. Secondly, it’s possible to reuse dry food ingredients many times during messy play; I’ve done this with dry rice, pasta and oats at home. Thirdly, parents are unlikely to see the paint that goes into finger painting during their kids’ early years as wasted, so you can apply the same thinking to edible materials used for crafts and sensory activities, as the foods are aiding learning and development. Indeed, opting for foods in messy play can cost you less than expensive craft materials. Finally, the food used in messy play wouldn’t otherwise be going to someone living in hunger, so isn’t depriving them of food, but thinking about the implications of food play might encourage you to donate to a local food bank. A closing thought on this area is that no one discourages water play, even though 783 million people worldwide have no access to clean water.

Image by Daniel Schwen via Wikimedia Commons

Food play may hinder eating at meals

Although you might think that messy play with food encourages children to mess around at meal times, exploring foodstuffs can actually improve dietary intake, particularly in terms of the range of items eaten. Increased dietary variety is thanks to sensory food play giving little ones the chance to explore foods, so when they are more familiar with the appearance and texture of a new food, as well as their smell and taste, they are more likely to accept them. Messy food play is especially helpful for children with sensory needs, who often struggle to tolerate different textures, as during sensory exploration there’s no pressure to eat.

Foods pose a risk for children with allergies

Edible materials are a good bet for babies and toddlers who still put items in their mouths, but while foodstuffs are non-toxic, they may be risky for children with allergies. This may affect more children than you realise, as up to 8% of kids in the UK have a diagnosed food allergy. Labelling the allergens in sensory trays helps to inform parents so they can choose which activities their children take part in. However, as there’s always a risk of cross contamination, it’s perhaps safer to avoid the major allergens in sensory play. In the messy play group I’m starting up, my plan is to steer clear of milk, soya, eggs and nuts, as these are the most common allergens among youngsters.

Image by Quim Gil via Wikimedia Commons

If you don’t use food for sensory play, the two alternatives are materials found naturally in the environment and those that are manmade. However, neither offers a perfect solution. Like food, many natural materials are safe if mouthed, though if every family started to take sticks, stones, bark, leaves, flowers and pinecones in quantity, this could potentially impact on the ecosystem from which they are taken. Meanwhile, the production of synthetic items can leave a large footprint on the environment. Therefore, perhaps there’s a balance to be had. There are benefits for using food in sensory play, but it’s important to be mindful of it use, so using food alongside other safe materials is probably a good bet.