I just don't "get" messy play

[deaconblue]

I understand playing with water with funnels etc, sand and buckets, painting with hands, feet etc but I just don't understand what ds is meant to learn from being allowed to coat himself head to toe in flour at nursery. It seems a waste of food (they do custard, beans, cereal etc) and no joke a little water and egg and we could have had ds en croute last night.
Can anyone enlighten me?

they learn about textures and stuff, motor control

Did you have a kid come home covered in flour too??

I don't do it - I am far too up tight for that. Ds gets to do it at playgroup though. Best place for it.

Because it's lots of fun - having worked in a nursery - we had a great time the children got to feel dif textures.

I'm really not anti fun or anti mess, it just doesn't make sense that it's just a tray of flour to be thrown everywhere. If there were containers to pour it into and out of or things to find under the flour I would understand the point better. They also use shaving foam and soap powder which must be awful if you had a dc with easily irritated skin.
I spent an hour while he watched tv brushing his scalp to loosen the flour off rather than wash it and turn it to wallpaper paste

I would imagine, having worked in a nursery, that they would have had a tray or water, and spoons, and maybe scales, and droppers with access to water etc, so they could see powder being turned into dough etc..
All good

now tray of water, droppers etc would make sense to me but I promise it's just a tray of flour. He'd created his own little pasties underneath his shoes
have no intention of complaining or anything, just wondered if there was a point to it. Texture...

learning about how a dry powder behaves. Its finer than sand and behaves differenty. adding water is a differnt game and set of stuff to get their heads round.

its fun. Learning about textures and how different things move and feel. All stimulates the brain. dd has no hand or arm function so we put her hands in messy play stuff because then her brain is learning.

DS en croute. Mmmmm

My dd LOVES 'messy' play

she loves swirling flour round to make patterns

Another fun one is to mix pasta shapes, rice + cereal to make noises and patterns when she lets handfuls run through her fingers

cornflour + water paste is great too - goes from hard to runny ... always makes her giggle

A tray of flour is used for 'mark making' pre writing. So the making of swirls and patterns is all learning how to write.

Messy play is great!!

dd nursery strip them down to nappies and let them wallow in jelly and cooked pasta!

Lots of tactile sensations,sound and noise,learning scientific principles (In the simplest way) with water play-pouring into big/litle containers etc etc.Very valuable learning for little children.Cornflour,water and food colouring makes great "Gloop",summer activity really though!

You can discover and learn so much more if there are no limits on how you play with stuff.

following this thread- I mentioned playting with flour to a friend. she texted me mid afternoon saying
" thanks for idea. K just spent half hour in little boy heaven playing with bowl of flour"

I saw 3 yr old K later today and 1st thing he told me about was " I put the really big spoon under it" . so messy play- not just good for tactile learning but also good for vocabulary, prepositions, quantifiers and tenses.

well, he's probably learned from your reaction to never try it at home for which you should be grateful!

I thank god ds gets to do it at nursery - he loves it and they deal with the mess!