Hi, does anyone know of any document, research etc on the benefits of sensory play especially food products jelly etc. Need to provide a solid reason for using these.

Thx

Have you looked in the pdf files on the EYFS cd rom? There's a lot of the theory behind the EYFS principles on there so it might be a good place to start.

There is a school of thought that using food encourages wastefulness. I dont like food being used for the simple reason I've seen children play with food as an activity and then later are told off for playing with their lunch.

Heres a fab document a lady at uni forwarded to me, she used it to support her EYPS baby placement, I will certainly be passing it onto my parents and staff

Here's a link to a article about sensory play short article you can always refer to, there are numerous similar ones if you just google 'sensory play'

there are a few books on amazon about sensory play, pretty sure if you have any books/articles on babies and under threes it will discuss the benefits of exploring bodies and play through the senses-Elinor Goldschmied discusses heuristic play if that is close enough link?

Birth to Three Matters will have lots on sensory play- the B-3M Review by David et al. also discusses it
...haven't seen anything specifically about the use of food, it is controversial with some but taste is a sense so we need food to experiment with... on Embarassing Bodies the psychologist used food play- using the senses to explore the food- with a little boy who didn't eat very well in order to work through his issue with food
can't think of anything else for now , hope that helps though!