Today we held a parent and child messy play event. The event was supposed to be about outdoor learning but the weather put an end to our planned event. Instead we had a very quick re-think and pulled together a messy play event as we didn’t want to disappoint our families. Around 50% of our parents and carer attended, which was fabulous! The inside learning environments were set-up with all types of messy play activities from glittery, slippery slime to gloopy, gooey Oobleck. Our windows were splattered with shaving foam (and so were some of the staff!) and children used their hands, paintbrushes and sticks to mark make in the bubbles. Our mucky mud kitchen provided opportunity for making mud pies and gallons of mud soup whilst our sand play trays and sandpit were a hive of activity with parents, carers and children enjoying sieving sand and sandcastle building. Our firm favourites, playdough and water play were as popular as ever. There were many other learning opportunities available, too many to list!
Each family was given a booklet about the importance and value of messy play in the early years detailing the skills that were being used and developed at each activity. The booklet also contained “recipes” for making playdough, Oobleck and slime at home. A copy of the booklet can be found here.
We hope to hold many more events like this as they are proving to be very popular.
