Messy Play Ideas

[TillyAndTotz]

Hi all,
Sorry if I haven't followed protocol but this is my first post, I've been a mumsnet follower for a while but I've finally got brave enough to create an account. So hello all :)

I've got 2 small terrors aged 3 & 4 (I've been lucky and got one of each).
The oldest one has been going to her friends house for little play dates, nothing long but maybe an hour or so here and there. I've also reciprocated the favour and had my child's friend at my house.

One thing my daughter does when she goes to her friends house is 'messy play'. I like the idea of it and I think it's really important to have something they enjoy and learn at the same time. One thing that really scares me is the mess part and I've been really reluctant to let her do it at our house. I've read on some forums that they get board after 10 mins and parents then have to clean up all the mess.

However I've seen this fabulous thing on ebay here: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/313184892161

It's basically a self contained tray where the kids can be really messy, but the mess stays in the tray. I've seen other messy play trays on ebay but I've always thought they were to large (especially considering we live in a terrace with a shared yard at the back). This one is small enough to go on the kitchen table, small enough to store in the airing cupboard but it's large enough for the kids to have fun!!

Also it looks super simple to clean up afterwards as I can just wash it out in the sink.

I also thought about using the washing up bowl for messy play but I think the youngest will struggle to 'play' with the mess inside due to the high walls of the bowl. Where as this one just looks like the right thing for totz.

Has anybody actually bought this? It looks like it ticks all the boxes!!

Tilly x

We always just used an under bed storage box, one of the plastic lidded ones. Then we stored all the stuff in it, like paints, a Tupperware of previously played with pasta or rice. One of her favourite activities involved dumping a very cheap box of rice crispies into the box then burying some of her plastic figures and cars in it. Gave her some plastic measuring cups and spoons and let her dig her toys free.

This looks ok

there'll still be mess outside the basin though, so it will not completely prevent mess.

May I ask why you're scared of mess? It will only be water, rice, bits of paper etc. I totally agree on the banning of glitter as that literally takes years to clear up. But putting down a sheet on the floor and then the washing up basin for playing with paper, rice etc will be easy to clear up. Can also use the 'stay on the mat' as a way of stopping treading of mess on to shoes / feet and therefore throughout the house As for kids getting bored and wandering off - IME for small children (ie 3-7) you do need to supervise anyway, so when they start getting bored, it's time to turn the tidying up into a game.

Please don't let a bit of planning and mess stop your children getting messy. One of my earliest memories is standing on a chair in the kitchen, with a big bowl filled with rice pouring it back and forth between 2 cups. I used to do it for hours according to my Mum

Hi @DPotter

When I speak to my daugter about the messy play at her friends house, it seems messy. They make Potions from Shaving foam, fairy liquid, bubble bath and even sand from the outside sand pit .

Hi @TorysSuckRevokeArticle50 I never really know it could be dry goods, that just seems like normal play? Good idea about the rice crispies, I'll get a box from Aldi!!

Maybe I shouldn't be so sceptical, I've bitten the bullet and bought 4 of them bowls, the more you buy the cheaper it is, so 2 for my kids and 2 for my kids friends.

They look sturdy and self contained!!

Have you got any more ideas, something with liquid but cleanish. The young boy has got an obsession with the soap dispenser and goes quiet every now and then, so I'm thinking something involving liquid in messy play will make him stop playing with the bathroom hand wash

Good ones with liquids are

• freeze a tray of ice cubes with different coloured food colouring mixed into the water for each cube, so some blue, some red, some yellow. Then give them a bowl of Luke warm water and do colour mixing by melting different coloured cubes in it.

• freeze some of their Lego men in little cups of water and let them rescue them from the ice

• get some of the mouldable washing foam from the kids toiletries and sit them in the bath to play with that or shaving foam, they'll need a rinse of afterwards.

• at DDs nursery they filled a bucket with baked beans and let them scoop and move them from bowl to bowl. VERY messy.

• homemade slime, you can add shaving gel to make it puffy like a cloud, or glitter which will get everywhere!

• finger painting, handprints, footprints with washable poster paints

• mix corn flour and water to make a weird substance that's both liquid and solid at the same time. If you tap the surface it bounces, if you dunk your finger in it sinks

• bowl of soapy water and let them wash dolls or their play tea set

• Give them soft fruits like strawberries, banana, raspberries and let them smoosh it up and mix with milk or fruit juice to make their own smoothie

Oh and very bubbly water blown with straws so they make shapes in the bubbles or drops of water blown across the tray to see who can get their water to the other side first.

We have used a cement mixing tray (around £10-£15) for indoor messy play as it is big enough for them to sit in (though you will need somewhere to store it).

Some ideas that went down well were:
Cooked spaghetti (use food dye for different colours)
Making mud (earth from the garden, be prepared for worms)
Water and food dyes for pots and potions
Flour and water (very, very messy!)
Water, washing up liquid and a hand whisk
Making an indoor pond with water and stones, sticks, leaves from the garden
Floating and sinking objects from around the house or walks (acorns, conkers etc)

Flisat table from Ikea. You can then buy the different size and depth bins for it. We use it daily, and then just pop the 'table' bits back on for drawing and painting. If you're on Instagram you can see lots of ideas for it from the hashtag (flisat)

Cat litter trays. £2 make ideal individual play trays.

Frozen peas is another good one- lots of pouring mixing etc, still messy but not us bad as baked beans.

We have ikea flisat (add trofast bins) and a tuff tray. We usually put it in garden for messy play - it's easy to make play mud, sand, rainbow rice etc. There's loads of ideas if you look up sensory bins.

Smaller amounts of jelly baff. It's a little expensive for the pack (£5 ish, sometimes cheaper offers) but you get enough to make a bath full, so you get a few uses out of it if you only do a little. I mix about 1/8 of the pack in a storage box, then put in a load of plastic anamals. At the end you mix in salt and it dissolves again.

Make dinosaur "eggs" by putting a plastic dinosaur in a balloon, then filling with coloured water and freezing. Once they're set you can cut the balloon off then give them the ice egg to hatch/melt with warm water.