Category Archives: Messy Play

Aug18

Shaving Cream Play

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Shaving cream in a tray.

Shaving cream in a tray.

A very easy activity for kids is letting them play with shaving foam. It’s easy to clean up with water and is lots of fun. It’s not good to eat though, so I prefer not to let Baby T near it, but L and A love squishing their hands into it.

Squishing and squashing.

Squishing and squashing.

Whisking.

Whisking.

We used a couple of plastic trays on top of a muck mat, in an attempt to contain the shaving foam. It’s nice to do this outside if the weather permits, where we can just hose the area down. L and A each had a tray with shaving cream in it. They used various utensils to mix and scoop it, but mostly they just liked to feel it, squish it and squeeze in through their fingers.

Mixing and spreading.

Mixing and spreading.

L pretended the shaving cream was part of her cafe and she made me a smoothie. A whipped her shaving cream up with a whisk, and somehow managed to get shaving cream all the way up her arms and on her face.

We have previously used shaving cream to practice writing spelling words in too. We just smooth a layer of shaving cream in the bottom of a tray, and then write the words using a finger to form the letters.

Messy fun!

Messy fun!

 

May3

Clay Monsters

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IMG_8261L had previously used some clay at school for modelling, but this was the first time for A. We used white air drying clay, which I bought at Bunnings.

Our dry monsters.

Our dry monsters.

The clay was easy to work with, and the kids treated it much like they would have play dough. They enjoyed the sensation of squishing it in their fingers, and rolling it into balls and sausages. Once they got down to the serious business of shaping their monsters we added a little water to the clay to make it sticky enough to create features. Working with wet clay can get pretty messy too, so we worked on a muck mat, and had damp tea towels for hand (and face) wiping as necessary.

Using a paint brush to add detail.

Using a paint brush to add detail.

I let the kids decide what kind of monsters they would model, yet both of them decided to make serpent monsters. Neither of the kids are particularly keen on snakes, so perhaps they thought snake-shaped monsters would make very scary clay monsters.

Making the clay smooth with water.

Making the clay smooth with water.

A made her clay into a long body with a little head, while L made her snakey monster with a huge head and fangs. L used a paintbrush to add some details to her serpent, such as a mouth. A painted water along the body of her snake until it was very smooth. Her monster really looked like a snake, but she assured me that it was a really terrifying monster. A also made a funny little spotty blob monster, which she said was like a germ.

My monster with umbrella.

My monster with umbrella.

I also made a clay monster of my own, because playing with clay is just fun. My monster was a bit of a blob with four feet, and numerous eyes made by poking the clay with a toothpick. It is also holding a clay umbrella with a toothpick handle. The umbrella was L’s idea, and I love it, it made my monster very quirky, especially since it doesn’t have hands or even arms for that matter, so I think it is holding the umbrella with its side! It has a tail that looks a bit like the opening of a trumpet, and three spikes on its head, but no nose.

The germ monster.

The germ monster.

We placed the monsters onto plastic wrap so they wouldn’t stick to anything, and then left the monsters to dry completely, which took a few days. This was not helped by a bout of rain at the time, keeping the air moist. While they were drying we were careful not to move them or bump them.

L thought she might like to paint her monster once it was dry, but in the end we left them as is. I quite like all of the clay monsters that we made, and we have placed them onto a shelf for display.

 

Apr28

Tie Dye

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Mirrored fold.

Mirrored fold.

IMG_9696We just had to try tie dyeing, it is so much fun, and it produces some beautifully unique and bright clothes. We used basic white cotton t-shirts and singlets for our tie dyeing, but it suits lots of other garments and cloth items too. I bought the tie dye kit from Educational Experience, as I wanted an all inclusive starter pack to help us get this fabulous activity right. This kit even came with a very handy DVD showing how to make some of the popular folds for tie dying.

L creating a swirl fold.

L creating a swirl fold.

All tied up.

All tied up.

We washed our shirts, and then folded and tied them up in various ways while they were still damp. L was quite good at getting her shirts folded, A needed a little help, especially when placing the rubber bands around the fabric. They tried swirls, scrunches and concertina folds. I also helped A place one of her singlets into lots of little puffs of fabric each secured tightly by a rubber band. I also tied up some shirts. My favourite to do was making the swirl.

Soaking in the soda ash solution.

Soaking in the soda ash solution.

The shirts had to soak in soda ash solution for at least twenty minutes. We did this in one of our large nappy buckets (a clean one!). While they were soaking we got our dyeing area set up. We did it outside to minimise the potential for getting dye on anything that it wouldn’t come out of, like the carpet. I laid down a muck mat on the grass, and the kids wore old clothes and art smocks, as well as gloves to protect their hands. The kit came with dye applicator bottles that required the addition of water and vigourous shaking to make the dye usable, so I did this, and then we could start. There were three dyes, red, blue and yellow, but these were easy to mix to make sections of purple, green or orange.

L dyeing the end of her bull's eye short blue.

L dyeing the end of her bull’s eye shirt blue.

Excess soda ash solution was squeezed out of each shirt as we removed it from the soaking bucket. Then it was ready for the dye to be applied. The kids enjoyed putting the dye onto their shirts in various colour combinations. It was very messy though, and even with the protective clothing, both kids had splashes of dye on their skin. A kept touching her face, resulting in numerous dye splotches on her forehead and cheeks, and L splattered some blue dye onto her legs. It didn’t wash off our skin with the first wash, but it was mostly gone by the following day.

Dyeing a swirly shirt.

Dyeing a swirly shirt.

Some dye ran off onto the plastic muck mat, so we opted to place our shirts onto cake cooling racks to help reduce the run-off dye from getting on the fabric where we didn’t want it. We also wiped down the mat with paper towel and washed dye off our hands in between shirts. When each shirt was finished receiving dye, it was placed into a plastic zip-lock bag to rest for about 24 hours.

After waiting a whole day, I rinsed the shirts out, removing excess dye. I removed all the rubber bands, and rinsed them some more, and then washed all of them in a regular wash. The first round of rinse water from the machine was still pretty blue, but it ran clear after that. I hung all the shirts up to dry. It was a spectacular row of colour hanging on my line. All the patterns came out wonderfully and the kids are so happy with them.

Spirals.

Spirals.

Scrunch pattern shirts.

Scrunch pattern shirts.

L's bull's eye.

L’s bull’s eye.

This is A's singlet that had all the little tufts of fabric caught in rubber bands. The whitish circles is where the rubber bands were.

This is A’s singlet that had all the little tufts of fabric caught in rubber bands. The whitish circles are where the rubber bands were.

The left singlet was folded in quarters and the right was vertically concertina folded.

The left singlet was folded in quarters and the right was vertically concertina folded.

 

 

 

Apr15

Arrowroot Biscuit Easter Eggs

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IMG_9084We go through a lot of milk arrowroot biscuits in our house, especially baby T, he loves them!

Biscuits and 100s and 1000s ready for decorating.

Biscuits and 100s and 1000s ready for decorating.

Milk arrowroots are oval shaped, and close enough to egg-shaped that we tried decorating them to make some non-chocolate Easter eggs. The icing is quite sweet though, so these aren’t a less sugary alternative to chocolate eggs, but they were fun to make.

I mixed up some icing sugar with a little bit of milk in a bowl, and then I transferred some to a zip lock snack bag. I added some vanilla essence and some food colouring to the bag, sealed it, and squished it all together to mix it. When it was ready to use, I snipped a tiny triangle off one corner so that we could use it as a piping bag. I added a bit too much milk to the first lot of icing so it was a little runny, but the other lots were a better consistency for piping.

Spreading icing with a knife.

Spreading icing with a knife.

Piping icing onto a biscuit.

Piping icing onto a biscuit.

The kids used the icing bags to spread icing across the top of the biscuits, on some making patterns with the colours, on others just covering the whole biscuit in the same colour. On some of them they used a knife to spread the icing out. They added some 100s and 1000s to the top of the biscuits, and some they even dipped in the bowl of 100s and 1000s to completely cover the top.

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This was a very messy activity! There was icing, 100s and 1000s and icing sugar everywhere (including all over the kids), but they had a ball. They also enjoyed eating some of their biscuit eggs along the way 🙂

The mess at the end.

The mess at the end.

Mar23

Coloured Rice for Sensory Play

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L’s school has been running a ‘paint and play’ or ‘stay and play’ program on a Friday morning for a while now. And we like to go along and enjoy it. There is usually some art and/or craft activities, toys, music, books, and sensory play. L liked in when she was still in preschool, and would probably still like to come to it if she didn’t have to be in class instead 🙂 I’ve been taking A regularly and she has made friends with some of the other kids that come regularly too. It is mostly other families that have older kids at the school. It is nice and easy to take L to class and then read books or do puzzles in the library until it’s time to gather under the trees at the front of the school for a play.

One of the sensory play items they sometimes have out is a huge tub of rainbow coloured rice. A loves it. A few times we’ve been, that is the only thing she has played with the entire time. She loves to run her fingers through it, pour it into different containers, spoon it around, put play animals in it, tell the other children it is hers and they can’t play with it…

I’d been thinking for a while that I should find out how to colour rice and make some for home, so I finally did. Turns out it’s pretty easy to do (thanks Powerful Mothering for showing me how!) A little bit of white vinegar mixed with food colouring in a ziploc sandwich bag made it super easy. I used about a cup of rice for each colour until I ran out of rice. A helped by putting the rice into the cup measure for me. I wish I’d taken a photo of the kids mixing the colour through the rice in the bag. They really liked squishing it around and shaking it to get the colour on all of the rice. The colour would have been more vibrant had we used white rice, but we had some old brown rice in the cupboard that we weren’t going to eat, so we put it to good use. I think the colour still took fairly well, though the red and pink look rather similar.

Coloured rice drying.

Coloured rice drying.

The rice needed some time to dry so I spread it out on baking trays. I popped it in the oven on low

Coloured rice drying in the oven on low.

Coloured rice drying in the oven on low.

with the door propped open  for a little while to speed up the drying time, since it’s still so cold here I thought it would take ages to completely dry, and I couldn’t put it outside in the sun as it was too windy. It didn’t take too long to dry like this, though the kids asked when it would be ready several dozen times.

Ready to play with.

Ready to play with.

The kids started out with one colour each, but predictably, that didn’t last long, and we soon had rainbow rice. They also wanted a little bit more, so we added some plain white rice to the mix as well.

Feeling the rice.

Feeling the rice.

Mixing the colours together.

Mixing the colours together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They ran their hands through it, put their feet in it, mixed it with whisks and spoons, measured it, put it in sieves and poured it through funnels. They really enjoyed the feel of the rice.

Feeling the rice with their feet.

Feeling the rice with their feet.

Sifting the rice through a slotted spoon.

Sifting the rice through a slotted spoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A's pet store.

A’s pet store.

L made her tub into a Chinese Restaurant, while A opened a pet store in her tub. A offered snakes, frogs, lizards, bugs, a polar bear and a camel for sale. She charged Big L $28 for a couple of lizards. L made us entrees of spring rolls and prawn crackers, mains of rainbow pork, and dessert of deep fried ice cream. She used the sieve to deep fry the ice cream, and some containers became the stove where she cooked the pork.

Making deep fried ice cream.

Making deep fried ice cream.

We had a wonderful time playing with the coloured rice. Not only was it a good sensory play activity, it also inspired some beautiful pretend play. I love watching the kids bringing their imaginations to life during pretend play, and it’s even better if I’m allowed to play too!

I have stored the rice in an airtight container for more play later, and the kids have asked that I make some more colours to add to the tub for next time.

 

Update March 29 2014:

Colouring the rice yellow.

Colouring the rice yellow.

I made two new batches of coloured rice today using white rice. The colours are much more vibrant, and I’m very happy with them. The kids wanted yellow, and I made some more red. It was sunny and calm today too, so I was able to put the trays outside to dry. It took much less time than our earlier batches. Once it was all dry, I mixed the new colours in with the others. The kids are very happy with their rainbow rice.

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New yellow rice.

New red rice.

New red rice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new mix of colours.

The new mix of colours.

 

Jan11

Cold Coloured Spaghetti

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It seemed like it was about time that Baby T got involved in some messy play with L and A. I wanted something that he could have fun with, but that wouldn’t be too bad if he ate some of it. So I decided that cooked spaghetti would be great to try. Of course, after cooking the spaghetti, it had to be completely cold before the kids could play with it.

I wanted to make the spaghetti coloured. I thought that if I cooked the spaghetti first, and then mixed food colouring through it, the food colouring would probably just rub off on the kids when they played with it. So I cooked the spaghetti in four batches, each with a different food colour added to the water during the cooking. This worked quite well, and gave us some lovely, vibrant colours. When I tipped the coloured spaghetti into the colander, I rinsed it thoroughly with cold water to cool it quickly and to wash any excess colour away. Some of the colour still came off on the kids’ skin, but it washed off easily. L and A kept trying to eat bits of it too, even though it was cold.

Red, green, blue and purple spaghetti.

Red, green, blue and purple spaghetti.

We started with four separate colours of spaghetti in a tub, but it quickly became mixed together. All of the kids really enjoyed this simple activity, running it through their fingers, squishing it, swirling it around. And because it was a bit sticky, they also enjoyed lifting their hands in the air and wobbling about the spaghetti that was stuck to them. Baby T also enjoyed throwing it, mushing it on his tummy, putting it in his hair, and trying to eat it several times. Overall, he had a ball with it.

First impressions.

First impressions.

Enjoying the spaghetti.

Enjoying the spaghetti.

Really getting into it.

Really getting into it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a while we added some water to the tub to see what would happen. This made the spaghetti slippery instead of sticky, and provided a new sensory experience for them.

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This was a very messy activity, and I was very glad we’d decided to do it outside. The kids came in one by one for a bath each, and I attempted to pick up as much of the spaghetti off the grass as possible. There was plenty of grass mixed up in it by then, so I put it in our compost bin. All the kids have asked to do this sensory activity again soon.

Nov10

Sugar Picture

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IMG_3655I had initially planned to use salt for this activity, but alas, we had run out of table saltIMG_3659, so we substituted white sugar instead. I’m pretty sure the results would have been the same either way.

I placed some coloured paper into the bottom of a clean baking tray and then let A paint with some PVA glue on the sheet of paper. While the glue was still wet, she sprinkled (dumped) the sugar onto the paper. I shook the tray around to spread the sugar out, making sure all the glue was covered. Then I shook the excess sugar off the paper back into the baking tray, before pouring it into a bowl with a funnel for the next picture.

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A also tried using the glue straight out of the bottle, but it was really too thick. The sugar started to dissolve where the glue was thick so it wasn’t as easy to see. However, when it dried it did create a 3D picture, which was pretty neat.

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Oct29

Dinosaur Dig

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Sporting some stylish eye protection.

Sporting some stylish eye protection.

Another of our purchases from Lincraft was a Dinosaur Dig Kit, including a sand block containing a dinosaur skeleton, some goggles, and some tools for excavating the bones. L loves dinosaurs, and she was super excited to get into a dig. Big L set her up at the table after A was in bed. He placed the block on a wooden board to minimise the mess. L donned the goggles, and got to work. She worked patiently and carefully, concentrating hard on her excavation. Using the mallet and peg, she dislodged some of the block to reveal a small section of bone. She was able to use the paintbrush to remove some of the dust from the protruding bones carefully.

 

Using the mallet.

Using the mallet.

The dig site shut when it was time for L to go to bed, and re-opened the following night. It took four or five nights for her to completely uncover the skeleton, which was in pieces.

Using the paintbrush to clean off the bones.

Using the paintbrush to clean off the bones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She soaked the pieces in some water to loosen any sand that was left. She utilised a toothpick to clean out some of the grooves and holes on the skeleton. Once all the pieces were clean and dry, she assembled the skeleton to make her dinosaur.

Soaking the bones.

Soaking the bones.

Using a toothpick to scrape out some sand.

Using a toothpick to scrape out some sand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L really enjoyed the whole process of the dinosaur dig, and she definitely wants to try another one.

A girl happy with her dino.

A girl happy with her dino.

 

Oct8

Flour Play

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Big L and I were busy outside sanding and painting (more on that later), and the kids were bored (despite all the fun outdoor equipment in the yard). I was a bit sick of being asked when it would be dry, so I tipped some plain flour into two of the sensory tubs to entertain them. They used various kitchen implements such as measuring cups, spoons, whisks and funnels to play with the flour. The little plastic animals went in too.

Making flour castles with the sieve.

Making flour castles with the sieve.

A started with her hands, then put her feet in, and then she climbed into the tub. Not to be left out, L hopped in too. They covered themselves in flour, made a huge mess, but boredom was banished!

Having fun in the flour.

Having fun in the flour.

Aug25

Jelly Dig

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The kids love to eat jelly in just about every flavour. They like to slurp it up, and squish it between their teeth, and unfortunately, drop it on the floor. So I wondered if they would also like to play with it. I was going to just make up a batch of jelly that they could stick their hands into, but then I saw a ‘Jello Excavation’ at Tinkerlab, and thought that would be even more fun. IMG_1350

So I made up two packs of lime jelly and as it cooled I dropped little plastic bugs and critters into it. I think I might have added too much water though, as the jelly was a bit soft. Then again, it was Coles brand, and I normally use Aeroplane jelly, so maybe it was meant to be like that.

Squishing the jelly.

Squishing the jelly.

Being a little wobblier than normal made it harder to get it out of the bowl in one piece, despite the spray oil I’d used in the bowl, but most of it came out intact. I placed it in a tub and put it outside for the kids to play with. I’m very glad it was an outdoors activity as, predictably, A got into the tub with the jelly before they were finished. She said it was to feel it squish between her toes. She likes to feel all of our messy and sensory play things with her feet… maybe she just likes to be extra messy 🙂

They used various implements to pull the critters out, and play in the jelly. They added in some pretend play too, making up gross critter food orders, such as bug soup with a side of slug slime and a snake milkshake. The jelly got thoroughly churned with a whisk, and was pushed through a sieve, put into cups and funnels, and spooned into the watering can, along with most of the critters. No one tried to eat the jelly, which surprised me.

Rescuing the bugs and animals from the jelly with tongs.

Rescuing the bugs and animals from the jelly with tongs.

Pushing jelly through a funnel.

Pushing jelly through a funnel.

It was very messy, but very fun.

I found an old tin of edible gelatin in the cupboard this morning, so I think I will use that for our next jelly play. I will make it firmer so that the kids can cut it into chunks and really excavate the bugs and critters, maybe with some spoons as digging implements. Looking forward to another chance to have a jelly dig in the backyard.

Whisking the jelly.

Whisking the jelly.