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Messy Play


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I've been put in charge of the messy play table and need to come up with some new ideas. We already do play dough, gloop, shaving foam, jelly, cooked and raw pasta. Would be really grateful if any one has any new ideas.

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You haven't mentioned sand - we have dry sand (certainly makes a mess!!). Sieves so that the children can sieve out rice from sand or large glitter shavings etc. we spread dry sand on the table and they mark make on it. You could fill a latex glove with sand and cut a tiny hole in one of the fingers and the sand comes out in a fine line to make patterns with. We haves bright purple sand at the mo the children went on to using this sand to make their names on paper with glue a few days later.

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Can you have a selection of things? Flour, water, paint, tea leaves, bicarbonate of soda, vinegar (careful of open cuts), warm water, powder paint, spoons, forks... anything and everything. Avoid cookng oil unless you can be sure of where it will go, its slippery. We used pots and dishes out of the home corner to mix and stir.

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we use this all the time- in fact a group of nursery children made some last week- it's fab- we call ours slime.

the Liquid starch we use is borax (available from boots the chemist). It has the most amazing properties. You can play around with the amounts of borax powder in order to make it more sticky/slimey or more rubbery. It last for ages too!

I shall attach the recipe we use if I remember as it is one my other pen drive

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We have sand and water all the time, but sometimes we alternative messy play in our builders tray, some other ideas include rice, lentils, dired beans and peas, paint.

 

wallpaper paste if you add food colouring to it, it can look like alien slime ect..

 

wet or dry:oats, soil/ compost, shredded paper

 

:o

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All of the above plus clay, could link to divali and possibly make festival of light holders.

Our children make the pre-schools playdough each week.

Shredded paper and water based adhesive wow fantastic mess.

Large ground sheet, large paper, make balls out of ankle socks, knee highs filled with material, cotton wool etc, dip in paint and let the children splat great fun makes amazing snowballs.

As you can tell we like mess and run our local extended services for messy play for the under fives in our area so we love it.

Always looking for other ideas to so shall watch this post with interest.

Good luck :o

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New ones we've just done this week:

 

- treacle - a little in a tray is great for mark making. Our boys stayed for an age running their tractors through. They were getting stuck in the mud! It's not as messy as you think and as it's so viscous the marks that are made stay.

 

- clean mud - Can't remember where we got the idea but you mix soap flakes, water and toilet roll together. Kids loved making it and then playing with it after. You can mould it and cut it similar to play dough. It feels completely different though and some of the children were very surprised and took a while to enjoy the feeling.

 

These were a first for me and I loved getting in there and playing too!

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New ones we've just done this week:

 

- treacle - a little in a tray is great for mark making. Our boys stayed for an age running their tractors through. They were getting stuck in the mud! It's not as messy as you think and as it's so viscous the marks that are made stay.

 

Woohoo! Sounds like fun! :o

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  • 1 month later...
we use this all the time- in fact a group of nursery children made some last week- it's fab- we call ours slime.

the Liquid starch we use is borax (available from boots the chemist). It has the most amazing properties. You can play around with the amounts of borax powder in order to make it more sticky/slimey or more rubbery. It last for ages too!

I shall attach the recipe we use if I remember as it is one my other pen drive

Has anyone bought liquid starch recently? I tried Boots but they didn't have it.

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i have been told we are not allowed to use borax as it's toxic????

Who told you that? I've never used it, but know a lot of people on here recommend it. Did whoever tell you not to use it say why? In order to make an informed decision you need to see the evidence! :o

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  • 1 month later...

we used bubble bath mixed with sand the other day, it started off life as a sand island with blue bubble bath around it, then it all got mixed together and made a frothy foaming sand - it felt lovely!

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other things we have used for messy play in our builders tray is soap flakes, salt, ice, leaves, water storage crystals (bead things you put in plants to store water when you go on holiday, sell in garden centres) when added to water look a bit like frogs sporn and all slimey to touch.

 

Also love the instant snow really realistic! Though not really need it this year!

 

Em

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I can't think of anything that hasn't already been said but just to add to Em's suggestion of ice, if you make coloured ice in two different primary colours and fill the tray with it they can get a sciencey take on it as it melts throughout the day but also an arty take because as it melts the colours mix to make a new colour :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Messy plsay we do at nursery include:-

 

Jelly (cooked - sometimes with spiders etc in/ and raw)

Scented/coloured rice (sometimes cooked) - same with pasta

Scented/coloured gloop

Scented/coloured Rice Pudding

Beans

Spaghetti

Coloured shaving foam

 

There are more, but mind is blank. I am looking for new fresh ideas; i read about some people making slime, does anyone know how to make it?

 

Charly x

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