With rainy days forecast over half term I thought I would share one of our favourite Edible messy play ideas This can be linked with a farm topic Or with everyone’s favourite pig, Peppa This is our muddy puddles messy … Continue reading
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Messy Play: Getting Your Hands Dirty
Regular readers of Edspire will know That we adore messy play The messier the better It is something we have encouraged at home from a very early age It is something we do in memory of Tilda Messy Play for … Continue reading
Messy Play For Matilda Mae: Small World Stars (HTCAS Ten For Ten Part Five)
It is back! We are back! Messy Play for Matilda Mae is back! Messy play is happening slowly in our house at the moment This is mostly because I set up a small world scene on a Monday And Esther … Continue reading
Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Icky Sticky Oooey Gooey Water Beads
This week we did our messy play for this post nice and early, we did it on Wednesday and I am STILL late!! My apologies I had a very busy weekend at The Baby Show. Earlier in the week things … Continue reading
Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Pink and Purple Play Doh
This week I am going to link to my own linky with a shopping list for messy play but first I would like to share with you a popular Play Doh activity from this weekend. I know a play idea … Continue reading
Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Instruction (Construction) Site
This week we have been playing with a rather fantastic construction site that William very cutely calls an ‘instruction’ site.
We have created a messy construction site before but we wanted to do it again as we have some rather fabulous new wooden vehicles from DKL Toys Wonderworld.
Esther and William have a front loader each and a dumper truck each. A large truck and a small crane to share.
These fabulous wooden vehicles are affectionately known in our house as ‘The Pack’ a name shamelessly stolen from Thomas. We also have Cranky the Crane working on the site.
The site is made in our Tuff Spot and we also used the mega ramp this time as an exciting way for vehicles and materials to access the site.
We marked out the site with cones and William donned his hard hat and safety jacket.
The materials we chose for the site were shreddies, oats, rice and cannelloni rolls as large drains. There is a building site opposite Esther and William’s preschool and we have sat and watched the drainage being moved by the trucks and cranes. Esther and William had great fun recreating the jobs we had seen the site crew carry out near their school.
I love the way that play like this encourages children to use language that they would not ordinarily have chance to use. Esther and William were stacking, scooping, digging, loading, scraping, transporting, constructing. They were giving each other instructions and directions, they described and narrated what they were doing and they asked questions. Lots of questions! Which is great, it is how children learn. Why are we doing this, how does this work, can I add this, can we try this, can you please do this? Questions, questions, questions!
Esther and William love messy play. I think that they find it therapeutic. It also encourages them to play differently, it provides problems to solve that means they can be creative in their thinking and their play. William loves testing things and spends lots of time testing things to see whether they are magnetic or not, using Cranky the Crane. Esther is more of a storyteller, a creator of characters. Their different styles complement each other beautifully as they play.
As the day moves on more and more toys enter the world of our messy play. Engines are usually the first to appear often followed by cars, fairies, pirates and dinosaurs. The mega ramp added a new element of play, an extra level to their storytelling. By the end of the day the construction site had morphed into this mish mash of play!
This morning while Esther and William were at school I changed the play from construction site to dinosaur park and this will be used tomorrow to explore flooding as the mega ramp becomes a waterfall and the dino park floods. I cannot wait to see how they interpret the play.
This post is the start of this week’s Messy Play for Matilda Mae, I hope you will link up and join us.
Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Sensory Snow
It does not look like the real stuff is coming any time soon So we have been making some of our own Snow Sensory snow For our Show Me Show Me Inspired Sparkle Snow Ball! To make the snow I … Continue reading
Messy Play: Love Letters in the Sand
We have had a wonderful week of sand play. William got a wonderful wooden pirate ship for Christmas from his Granny and Granddad. He loves playing with it and we read the book Port Side Pirates that has helped us … Continue reading
Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Sibling Sensory Salt Dough Play
We have been playing with salt dough. It is rather lovely stuff. I like it a lot. I don’t know why but I have always been a bit frightened of it. I needn’t have been. Easy to make, easy to … Continue reading
Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Autumn Tracks
If you go down to the woods today you will find little piles of collected sticks, leaves coloured like jewels floating down the stream, dens and hides where we have sat, played and hidden. If you go down to the … Continue reading