Messy Play Ideas With Minimal Mess

By Marina Rahamim, 06 August 2024

Welcome back to messy play! If you joined me in my last post, you might recall the tips I shared on setting up messy activities at home which have given me the confidence needed to keep chaos and overstimulation to a minimum. I know first-hand how challenging it can be to find the right balance between creative play and keeping things under control. Equally sometimes coming up with fun ideas for the activities themselves can be tricky.

In this month’s blog I’ve outlined some tried and tested activities that will hopefully offer inspiration for the summer. From mud-like mixtures and edible play to water-based fun, these activities are designed to ignite your child’s imagination while keeping your home (mostly) intact.

Mud-Like Creations. It’s no surprise kids love mud (thank you Peppa Pig!) and it’s easy to create a similar experience in a controlled messy play at home. Mix 2 cups of cornflour with 1 cup of water and add either cocoa powder, cinnamon or brown paint for colour. Set the activity up near a sink or in the bathtub for easy clean up (but be prepared - this is a more immersive experience). If you prefer to sit at a table or have access to the outdoors, you could also try air-dry clay or wet sand which have a similar sludge-like consistency. Whatever you use, if you want to contain the mess, keep the session short and stick to your timer. When I got the wet-sand out with my 2 children together, I set the timer for just 5 minutes because I made it a more emmersive experience. I thought it was going so well that I let it continue after the timer had already beeped, which was a mistake because then it got WILD! You could make it a longer session than what I did but if you use a timer, best to stick to it. That way they know the boundary, and this will help keep things calm. This activity is really best done with you so that you can share the experience together. Don’t be surprised if this often sends children running to the loo, as the play brings awareness to their bodies. Play works in magical ways! 

Edible Messy Play. Snack time is such a great opportunity to get messy because it is usually a time where it is accepted that they eat with their hands. If you have babies in the house, you’ll know (or remember) that just eating is in itself a messy play activity. With bigger ones, we spend a lot of time teaching them good manners but we also want to make food fun to encourage well balanced diets and a positive relationship with food. One of our favourite messy play activities at home is finger-painting after eating berries. The best bit about this one is that, if you have children of different ages and stages, this activity is one for all to enjoy and it's a fun, creative way to clean their hands. You could also use other edible painting opportunities by mixing yoghurt with spices (or water with spices works too).

Continuing on the food theme, why not get out the whipped cream foam (dairy free alternatives available) and watch their faces light up with excitement – the noise, the feel, and of course, the taste! If you don’t want to use food, a good alternative is shaving foam as it creates the same excitement and is a similar texture. To minimise the mess, keep it in a small tray and hands remain in the bowl – that way you really do limit your mess to one bowl. When hands come out, it’s the end of the activity, because then it can start to get too overwhelmingly messy; like all messy play activities, keep a towel ready to wipe hands and a sink or bowl of water to clean them.

Another firm favourite in our house is using old cooked spaghetti which has been left in the fridge that no one is eating, and put it into different bowls and colour them with food colouring or more natural food colourings depending what you have eaten – the juice from a packet of ready cooked beetroot or ground turmeric could work well. If you’re worried about the connotations of them playing with food, it is important to talk to them about why this is pasta for playing and the pasta for dinner is for eating. Emphasise that it is not a meal time and that we only do it with food that has been in the fridge for too long and is no longer safe to eat so we do not waste. That way you’re really engaging with them, and it’s another beautiful way to learn about the world around them while getting creative.

Water- Based Activities. The cleanest messy play idea with minimal mess that I know for babies is to pour about a centimetre of water into the lip of their highchair trays and then add a few drops of their usual soap to the water. Keep a towel on the floor and let them create bubbles with their fingers as they splash the water. This is a fun way to clean their fingers after food and creates a positive image for your baby of their time in the feeding chair (and helps you to clean their tray table).  Although simple, it will allow them to feel a sense of empowerment, achievement and confidence as they learn to do something new, which let’s face it, feels great at any age! It also has added benefits for their physical development and coordination as they stretch and move. Water is fun at any age, my 3-year-old can spend ages pouring water between containers. It is so simple and gives her such a sense of mastery. 

Temperature. Exploring temperature is another way to develop messy play and a way to keep cool in the summer months. I made chia pudding recently which was met with mixed reviews (at best!) in our house, so what we did was freeze it into a lolly which actually worked out so well. Even if they don't enjoy the flavour, they were open to trying new flavours through freezing (big plus again for those with fussy eaters) but also this can lead to a fun activity. For older kids, freezing figurines into ice trays and adding food colouring, paints, glitter etc is a fun way for them to create and have fun excavating once frozen (adult supervision necessary).

Lotions and Potions. With that said, another favourite in our house is potion making, which I actually used to do as a child myself and remember how fun it was. This is a great one if you have some dying flowers at home so as not to waste anything. We also like to do this in the summer to get rid of the flies (great excuse to add honey, vinegar and other bits and pieces lying around). For those upset about the flies, I can safely say that no flies have ever been harmed as they are never (unfortunately) attracted to the potions we have made!

I recently inadvertently discovered another fun idea for the summer by handing my children a roll-on sunscreen. To my surprise, they spent over 20 minutes giggling and enthusiastically applying it on their own. They had so much fun, that I eventually had to take the sun-cream away to conserve it for the rest of the holiday. The best part? They actually begged to put on sun-cream again!

I’d love to hear any messy activity you’ve tried at home - things that worked and things that didn’t are all helpful to add to our toolbox as parents.

I recently led my own messy play event specifically designed for children aged 6 to 14 months, focussing entirely on edible (and vegan) materials.  The class combined the essential skills needed for weaning with creative arts, providing plenty of room for learning along the way- If you're interested in hearing more about it and have children of this age or even older, feel free to contact me at marinalayla@gmail.com. I'm exploring the possibility of expanding the age range and hosting more intimate group events in the future.

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Marina Rahamim is a qualified child therapist. Over her career, she has worked with children who have experienced different challenges from bullying and low self-esteem to divorce and domestic violence and abuse. Furthermore, she has supported a Local Authority Children’s Centre, leveraging her understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) developed through her NCFE Cache Level 3 Diploma for the Early Years Workforce (Early Years Educator). However it was Marina’s work at a leading charity, Norwood, that sparked her true passion for working with children and learning about child development, where she organised and ran activities for young people aged between 5 and 25 years old who had special educational needs over a 5 year period. Now a mother to 3 young children and a fellow parent at La Petite Nursery, Marina has used her extensive training and work in the field of childcare and psychology to follow her own passions and hobbies, including coming up with enjoyable strategies to help manage behaviour and being an enthusiastic baby signer. Marina graduated with a Master’s in Play Therapy from the University of Roehampton in 2017 (accredited under BAPT).