We will add to the Messy Play Mondays with specific posts about different activities and give you ideas on how you can recreate this type of play at home should you wish to. In spite of the title "Messy Play" it is possible to recreate the activities on a small scale at home and manage the mess so that your child gets all the fun and benefits without completely trashing your home! But in this first post I wanted to talk about why we offer messy play.
Why is this type of experience important?
There are huge benefits to messy play, here are just a few of the benefits from each area of learning:
Personal, Social & Emotional Development (PSED)
Messy play is open ended with no "right or wrong answers," this encourages children's natural curiosity as well as boosting self esteem and confidence as children enjoy and explore the activity without any feeling of having to complete the task in a set way.
Physical Development
Messy play can help children to build their strength in their hands or fingers (particularly with dough and malleable materials) to develop their hand eye co-ordination when pouring and scooping and to develop their fine motor control for example when making marks in shaving foam or gloop.
Communication and Language
Often the best place to observe children using and developing their communication and language skills is at the messy table. Children tend to find the unusual materials an interesting starting point for conversation and the open ended nature of the play means there are lots of opportunities for children to explain what they are doing and ask questions of others.
Literacy
As mentioned above before children can begin to develop into "writers" they must first become mark makers and develop the physical skills in terms of muscle strength and dexterity which will enable them to go on to successfully form letters.
Maths
Play which involves pouring and scooping material helps children to begin to understand the ideas of full and empty, to compare how much water \ slime \ dough fits in different containers and to use the language linked to size. As they get older there are opportunities to introduce measuring in different ways.
Understanding The World
In messy play there are many opportunities for children to observe and comment on what they see, beginning to ask questions about what happens and to speculate why it might happen.
Expressive Arts and Design
Your child's imagination can really get to work when they are enjoying messy play, they can be creative and really explore a wide range of media and materials.
Hopefully this has been useful in highlighting why we feel messy play is important, the children on the whole LOVE it and there is so much learning that they can get from it.
YES we encourage them to wear an apron and NO we really are not trying to just mess up their school clothes but I hope now with a little insight into why we provide this type of activity you will forgive us on those occasions when they come home a little less neat and tidy than when they arrived at school!
