Messy Activities

[Guest]

Looking for some different or new ideas for messy play..........

 

Have also recently purchased a 'tuff spot' so am interested in suggestions for it use...

mrsb

[tuffspot]

http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thr...p;messagePage=1

 

 

lots of ideas here...

[Marion]

The little book of messy play

 

but things like gloop

shaving foam

compost mud

hair gel mixed with glitter and food colouring

angel delight

porridge

jelly

 

all great for mark making/ writing

 

cooked spaghetti with food colouring

[Guest Wolfie]

There's also a good book for the tuff spot called "50 Exciting Ways to use a Builder's Tray" by Helen Bromley, published by Lawrence Educational.

[Guest]

thanks for your replies.......I have some of the little books of........ but not messy play....think I will be buying that soon.

Will also look into the book by Helen Bromley.

[Rea]

This looks like so much fun, I'm tempted to get it for home (not for me you understand )

It's called Gelli Baff and you can find it at Hawkins Bazaar HERE

Have fun

[Guest]

We have recently used cooked spaghetti mixed with washing up liquid. Use a variety of spoon, utensils etc to handle it with, or just your hands.

 

Three bowls of cooked rice in different colours. Use plastic beakers and moulds. The children love making layers of different colours and turning them out like sand castle.

 

Also good are different bowls on the floor with different things in, cooked spaghetti, warm water, cold water. sand paper, cotton wool shredded paper etc. Get the children to take their shoes and socks off and see how they feel.

 

A long roll of wallpaper on the floor with paint is good. Loads of children can have a go at the same time. When finished hang on wall to show you respect their work.

 

Tissue paper circles with a large piece of paper and water are good for experimenting with mixing colours also. Wet them, stick them on top of each other and when dry peel them off. They leave the colour behind.

[Inge]

The bowls on floor is a good one, we used tuff spots too for some items, and had mud, porridge,flour, sand, spaghetti, dry leaves was interesting, children began to think of things to use themselves and added to it during the morning

unfortunately the shredded paper was coloured and when they walked in it with damp feet the colours were left on thier feet...it would not wash off

quite a few comments on coloured feet from parents next day

 

lots of plastic and paper on floor needed, large bowl of water at end and lots of towels

 

children spent almost all morning playing in it with feet & hands

 

Inge

[alis2son]

omg, just had a flash back to primary school days with the glittery hair gel tubs, lol wonder if they still sell them like that.

[Guest]

We poured very soapy washing up water into our tuff spot and put a hoop in. We then got the children to stand inside the hoop with their wellies on and slowly lift up the hoop so they were standing in a bubble tube. Great fun and lots of cooperative working as they helped each other (An idea borrowed from someone else)

[Guest Wolfie]

The manufacturers of Gelli Baff are offering free samples at the moment - there was a leaflet with the email address inside this month's copy of Nursery Education which I've now thrown away but I'm sure if you Google it the manufacturer's website will come up.

[shazzam]

try adding washing up liquid to sand it makes a gorgeous moussy texture!

be careful of sensitive skin you may wish to use baby bath in it.

[hali]

we did cornflour with out the water the other day...it was like christmas

[Jackie A.]

We've been focusing on Goldilocks and the three bears this week, so put dry porridge oats in our tuff spot with 3 bowls and 3 spoons of different sizes. The children, (many of whom have very little English) were spontaneously re-telling the story. I heard so many "WHO'S BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE?" After a couple of days, the children watched as we added water to the porridge oats to make a really messy, gooey porrridge mixture. I was sat reading a story in the book corner yesterday when I was brought a lovely bowl of overflowing dripping, messy porridge for my breakfast! Also, because we had this messy activity outside, many of the children have had their coats on this week. Of couse you can't roll the sleeves up on coats. I'm not sure what the parents think when their children go home with porridge up to their elbows!!

 

Although I love using the tuff spot for messy activities, I'd love to know if there is an easy way to clean it out. It obviously doesn't fit in the sink, and it doesn't fit through the external door, without tipping it vertical. So yesterday after school I was up to my elbows in porridge, scooping it up by hand into a plastic bag to throw away. Then buckets and buckets of soapy water trying to get rid of every last grain of porridge!

[Marion]

We have an outdoor tap and hose pipe with "gun" type nozzle if you put this on the finest setting it cleans anything We had spaghetti in the water tray all week and tried it!

[Guest]

we don't have a tuff spot, we have a large rectangle tray we got from the garden centre, works lovelly as we can fit through doors and with 2 people its easy to carry, also fits in the sink, even though it is a bit long!!!!!!

[Guest]

........and we all get paid to have this much fun

 

aren't we the lucky ones, better than an office job any day :wacko:

 

Peggy

[Guest]

I was asked the question the other day why work with early years practioners, I relied becuase I love it, reading threads like this with the comment about you being paid to have fun, kind of sums it up really!

[Guest]

try water and strips of newspaper the children can mould it, very messy but fun .

had a laugh yesterday the garden centre delivered some play sand,ornamental bark and some gravel. We where busy so we asked him to put them in a corner out of the way. Then we realised we had to move them to put them in the tough spot and then store them, not that funny you may say but my deputy has a bad back and I have a frozen shoulder. We devised a system where I pulled with my good side and she sort of shoved with her feet. We started laughing the children thought we had gone nuts! They loved the ornimental bark though it did have a bit of a funny smell so we did lots of hand washing.

[Deb]

We've had great fun recently using real ingredients but allowing the children to explore at their leisure. We noticed that some of the children wanted to explore the cooking ingredients after we finished cooking. So we gave them a packet of value flour and margerine and some water and just let them explore. Every time we do the activity we extend it by adding different resources (not all at once) such as food colouring and flavourings, powder paint (banana, strawberry, chocolate flavour!), raisins etc.

 

The children love this activity - today we had a table full of happy, absorbed children which was just as well with Ofsted there! Can't recommend it enough, very messy but wonderul opportunites for learning.

[Rea]

I used to love doing that messy stuff at playgroup, reading that takes me back!

 

Present nursery and others I've been in stop the children from using sand or dough in the homecorner and mess is limited to 10 minutes 2 children at a time. Darn shame.

 

Lovely to read mess is going on in other places. Keep up the good work

[Marion]

I had an important meeting today and when I opened my box file out fell a playdough pizza and chicken leg someone had made earlier .........ooops!

[Guest Wolfie]

Rea, I'd love to limit mess to 10 minutes in my home!!!! But never in my nursery!