Let Your Kids Play in the Soil!

If you’re happy to let your little ones get messy with water, food items, paints, play dough and sand, what about soil? Although letting babies and toddlers play in the dirt may seem a step too far for some parents, letting your kids get dirty is a good idea. You might worry that playing in the earth means your tots are more likely to get poorly, but children who spend more time playing in the garden, woods and other natural spaces are healthier than their peers that who don’t get this exposure.

Soil is teeming with microbes, which is a good thing. Young children need contact with a wide range of micro-organisms to enhance the diversity of their gut flora, which is essential for a strong immune system and good health. The link between exposure to microbes and health relates to the fact that when we don’t challenge our immune systems regularly, our white blood cells start reacting to foods and other things in our environment, such as pollen and animal hair, which gives rise to allergies. Studies back this up, with one example being that kids living on farms are less likely to suffer from allergies or asthma, which is thought to be thanks to the diverse microbes they come into contact with.

Image by ronnieb via morguefile

Encourage your tots to play in the soil, make mud pies and don’t worry if they want to sample some! Just wash their hands with water and soap when they’re finished, so there’s no need to use antibacterial products. Interestingly, research shows that young kids living in homes where bleach is used are more vulnerable to infections, so hold the harsh cleaning products for everyday cleaning.

While you can top up your little one’s gut microbes with probiotic supplements, don’t underestimate the benefits that outdoor play can have, which is one more reason to encourage your kids to spend more time outside.

5 Minute Make - Cloud Dough

If you’re looking for an alternative to play dough, what about cloud dough? When you run your fingers through cloud dough, it is silky and a bit like fine sand, which is probably where its alternative name, “moon sand”, comes from. Little ones certainly have fun scooping and pouring it, as I saw at this month's messy play session. However, when you scrunch some together in your hand, you can also mould the dough. With just three ingredients, you can whip up a batch in no time with items from your kitchen, so within five minutes your little ones have a fun sensory material to explore.

Although some recipes for cloud dough suggest using baby oil, for my recent messy play group in St Bees I used vegetable oil to make it safe if eaten. You can use whatever vegetable oil you have in your cupboard, but rapeseed oil, which is used in most generic vegetable oils, worked well.

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To make cloud dough, simply mix two cups of flour with a quarter of a cup of vegetable oil. For colour, you either need to add powdered food dye to your flour or add oil-based food colouring to your oil before mixing, as standard water-based food colour doesn’t work due to the oil content.

As you can imagine, the cloud dough gets everywhere, so you’re best off placing a tub on a wipe clean surface, putting down an old sheet or taking your kids outside for their sensory play!

Looking for a New Goo Recipe? Try This

Little kids love to get their hands stuck in to slime and gooey materials. If you’ve already tried cornflour gloop, what other options are there for homemade goos?

There are lots of recipes for goop online, but if your little one likes to taste new materials, it’s best to avoid slimes that use PVA glue or borax. A simple and safe goo that you might like to try is hydrated basil seeds. It might not sound very inspiring, but when you soak basil seeds, they form a gel casing, which takes up food colouring well. The result is something that resembles frogspawn. At this month’s session of messy play in St Bees, the tray with yellow, blue, orange and green frogspawn went down really well, as little hands set to work exploring the mix.

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The hydrated seeds stick to clothing and towels like mad, so you might like to have your tots play with these just in their nappy or pants for easy cleaning! If this doesn’t put you off, the recipe for frogspawn couldn’t be easier. Simply take one tablespoon of basil seeds – you can buy these on ebay and Amazon - and one and a quarter cups of water coloured with food dye of your choice. It takes just five minutes for the seeds to swell and your kids can play with them straight away. If you’re making the seeds ahead of play, you may need to add some extra water to help the seeds unstuck and flow more easily.