A balancing act
Stick green, red, blue and yellow electrical tape in the formof a
spider web all over the living room floor. Drop paper flies/spiders
on the web. Children can then walk along the lines to find their
way to the spiders.
Ka-boom!
Put a mixture of baking soda and vinegar into a zip lock bag
and watch it explode (outdoors, obviously!).
Fun in the bath
Fill ice cube trays with water and add a drop of different food
colouring to each section. When they’re frozen, pop them out
and drop them into the bathtub. Younger children will love
trying to grab them before they melt. This is a great way to
encourage hand-eye coordination.
Love hearts
Make beautiful hearts out of a cornstarch, baking soda and
water for Grandma’s birthday or as ornaments. Mix 1 cup of
cornstarch and 2 cups of baking soda together in a saucepan,
then gradually add 1
⅓
cups of water. Put over amediumheat,
stirring, until themixture thickens to a dough. Turn out the dough
onto a plate and cover with a damp cloth until cool. Then roll out
the dough, cut into shapes and place in a just-warmoven to dry
out. When your shapes are dry and cool, you can get painting.
Homemade play dough
Mix shaving cream with cornstarch and add some food
colourings to create fluffy play dough. It’s cheap, cheerful
and doesn’t dry out.
Planes, trains and automobiles
Make vehicles out of large cardboard boxes (the type that
moving companies provide). One box can be the body of the
train or aeroplane, while another box can provide enough
cardboard to cut out wings, propellers, wheels, dashboards
and even a roof.
Creepy crawlies
Paint bottle tops with nail polish. Add some eyes, a nose and
some pipe-cleaner legs (or paper triangle fins) and create a
zoo of little spiders, frogs, ladybugs, bees and even fish.
Pineapple jack o’lanterns
Hollow out a pineapple, cut out eyes and a mouth, place a
tea candle inside and the pineapple stem back on top as a
hat. It smells so nice!
moving and chiding them for getting
dirty. “You could actually hear the
parents stop children from playing,”
says Kathy.
Kids are cleanable
“
Kids are 100 per cent cleanable,”
says Kathy, but limiting mess to an
easily washable location is fine – add
food colouring, straws and buckets to
the bath and see what happens. Squirt
shaving foam or lotion on windows
and draw, or mark the condensation
that forms. “They love that,” says
Kathy. If the apartment is definitely
off limits, the beach is one instant
messy play resource. Mixing sand,
dusting shells, and collecting seaweed
are a funfair for the senses and can be
left outside.
According to Kathy, when parents
are otherwise so concerned about
education, cutting out messy play is
misguided. Skills acquired through
messy play offer a perfect base for
later learning, from primary through
to university. “Without curiosity they
lose an interest in study, and the world
around them,” she says.
Get messy
Mother-of-two Barbara Ashbrook offers these tips for inspiring messy and creative fun for all the family:
March 2013
43