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Our pepe love messy play
At BestStart Claudelands our pepe love to explore messy play experiences. The tamariki spend a lot of time exploring the properties and textures of different sensory set ups including gloop, slime and finger painting.
Children are developing their hand-eye coordination as they scoop, pour and mix. Kaiako often show tamariki how the texture can change by adding more water to make it runnier. This helps tamariki learn about cause and effect when you combine things together.
Messy play is also relaxing and soothing for our tamariki it helps them to become aware of being calm and relaxed. Feeling calm helps children to have a clearer mind which aids positive thinking, concentration, memory and decision making. Relaxation slows our heart rate, reduces our blood pressure and relieves tension.
Children often create stories related to the mixture or teachers might encourage children to move through the mixture while chanting a rhyme or singing. It’s a great creative outlet as they make up stories, practicing their communication and cooperation skills.
Teachers extend children’s vocabulary by adding words to what the children are noticing in their play – mixing, thick and thin liquids, texture words like smooth, lumpy, slimy, cold, warm, soft or sticky and for older pre-schoolers that love words try viscosity (how fast or slow the liquid pours), miscible (can mix with another liquid), immiscible (can’t mix with another liquid e.g. water and oil). Speaking to children informally about what they are experiencing at the time of their exploration is the best way to extend and enrich their vocabulary.