Let's Talk about: Messiness

When referring to messy play, activities such as play dough, painting or art and crafts may come across your mind. Sometimes, we may be reluctant to conduct these activities with the children due to the amount of mess that it might create and we have to clean it up. However, there are benefits that children can get from messy play itself.

Benefits of messy play

During messy play, children are given the autonomy to explore and play with the concrete materials provided. By giving them the autonomy during play, we are encouraging children to be explorers, who are always curious about the world around them. While manipulating with the materials, it also encourages children to be creative, incorporating symbolic play into their messy play. During such play, it allows time for self-regulation where they concentrate on the same task/activity for a period of time. In messy play, materials are provided and children are therefore able to explore it with their senses - how the materials feels like, how could they transform the materials and etc. Supporting by the facilitation of an adult, children will be able to expand their vocabulary and extend their knowledge on the properties of materials.

Aside from the benefits, here are some suggested ways on how you could cope with messy play:

• Set rules and expectations with children before play

While giving children the freedom during play, it is also important to be firm and have them to understand the reasons behind the rules that are set.

• Have an assigned space for messy play

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Make use of old bed sheets covers, picnic mats or table cloths! This will make clean up time much easier with the assigned space for messy play!

• Provide washable, toxic free materials

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• Limiting the amount/ variety of materials

Before setting up such activities for children, have a plan in advance—What is the focus of the activity that you are providing? What do you want your children to learn about? Having such questions might help you to rationale regarding the limitation of the materials. 

If you can't beat stand the mess, join them!