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Messy Play activities!
With Messy Play, children can get dirty, wet, or soiled with paint and other sticky materials. But, do you know that messy play is also one of the best ways infants and toddlers learn about their world?
Our tamariki in the Koru Room at Beststart Welcome Bay are presented with various kinds of child-safe messy materials (e.g., gloop, paint, sticky dough, slime, jelly, tapioca pearls) each day. Our kaiako considers the children’s interests and each child’s learning goals in deciding which messy play material to use.
The tamariki enjoy squishing, scooping, lathering these on their arms and faces, and even tasting them at times! These messy play activities encourage the children to explore varied materials using their senses.
Apart from sensory experiences provided by messy play, several types of messy play also provide a wide range of benefits to children’s development. Allowing infants and toddlers to mold and scoop these materials helps in the development of those little movements and muscles in their hands.
Moreover, they develop hand-eye coordination as they track the movement of their hands whenever they spread these materials on paper, the table, or in containers. More skills developed in young children include creativity, problem-solving, recognizing similarities and differences, building relationships with others, and language skills. You see, it can be messy, but it leads to hundreds of learning opportunities for our little explorers!