Last Summer painting, play dough making, water play and sensory play with rice and pulses were a regular occurrence here. I enjoyed providing these kinds of things for the girls and loved watching them explore new textures and materials.
Then they started in Naíonra (preschool) and, as they engaged in messy play every day there, I gave myself a free pass to avoid doing it at home. They didn't seem very interested in playing with play dough in the afternoons anyway, having already played with it for as long as they liked that morning... or that's how I justified it anyway... Eventually I fell out of the habit of just 'going with it' and the thoughts of purposely letting them run riot with sticky stuff started to seem like too much hard work for me.
Getting started with the 'carpet' |
Until Saturday, that is, when a rainy day and a prompt from Mama Courage encouraged me to provide them with a licence to mess. And I'm so glad I loosened the reins and decided to not worry about the cleanup before the fun was had.
I don't actually know if our Saturday 'messy play' is exactly within the parameters of how 'messy play' is defined but it did make a mess. And it was sticky. And it didn't have any rules... so I figure it qualifies for the linky I'm adding this post to!
I found two shoe boxes (one each), grabbed the big box of craft stuff, clipped some images from a stack of old magazines and set everything on the table. The girls went to choose some of their tiny toys to live in the houses while I poured out 'gloopy glue' found paint brushes and tried to lay out the huge amounts of stuff in some kind of a coherent manner... not that is was possible. Not that it even mattered, because it was all upside down and all over the place within minutes anyway.
So they snipped and they stuck and they ordered me to cut things out for them (like the bunting) and they came and they went and all in all they spent about 4 hours creating their little houses and even more time playing with them since.
Lile's house. That's a Picasso on the wall. Girl's got taste. |
The animals relaxing by the fire. |
Sábha's house |
Even bunny got decorated. Sábha made the necklace too. |
Hooray for Messy Play!
I am taking part in Mama Courage's linky entitled ‘Messy Play Projects’. If you have thought about doing messy play but have yet to find the motivation, now’s your chance - click through to find lots of inspiration. Or if you’re a professional at getting sticky, maybe you’d like to pass on some ideas. Do join in and share your messy play ideas too!
Your girls are talented...and patient. R would probably eat most of that stuff before we got to make anything, and I would be sitting in a corner weeping. :-D
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, the houses are beautiful. and yes, R would eat most of it. sigh.I'll give it a go this weekend anyway.
Haha! Oh Muuka! I'm so glad mine are past the 'tasting' phase... though they are prone to nibbling their own hair and clothes still... Do give it a go. Apparently the outcome isn't really what's important in this kind of play, it's the process (if you can actually handle the process, that is!) She'll have a ball!
DeleteSuch a creative house! Thank you on joining in on the messy play fun :)
ReplyDeleteThank YOU for the inspiration!
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