Our Go to Messy Play Activities
Meet Elyse, mother and member of our fantastic Parent Panel*; a diverse community of Bright Horizons parents sharing their experiences of raising happy, thriving and confident children. In this blog, Elyse shares her and her little one’s favourite messy play activities.
*Incentivised content
We love messy play in our house. Our 2.5-year-old is an absolute hurricane of a child, and nothing brings her more joy than unleashing her full raccoon energy through mess.
The first time we tried messy play, she was just a tiny dot, sitting in her Bumbo with a tray of (lightly!) blue-coloured water, splashing around in the middle of a heatwave. What started as a blatant attempt to keep her cool and entertained turned into big smiles, flailing arms, and a look that said, “Wait, I’m allowed to go wild?”
Messy play isn’t just about new textures and sensations. It’s also a way to teach our little whirlwinds how to let go. It shows them there’s a time and place to be silly, chaotic, and gloriously mucky. It's a chance to explore colours, smells, sensations, and spatial awareness. And it opens up endless opportunities for language and connection:
“Which colour is that?”
“What is that in your mouth?”
“How many are there?”
“Why is that on the cat?”
Here are a couple of our favourite messy play activities:
Chalk drawings
“Drawing isn’t messy play!” I hear you cry. Well… it is, if you make it messy.
We keep a tub of big chunky chalk eggs by the back door. If she fancies it, our daughter can head outside and start drawing all over the patio. But her favourite part isn’t the drawing. It’s the imaginative play that follows. She (and, let’s be honest, I can’t say no to that face) will draw out little scenes like a bed or a changing mat and act them out. Maybe she fancies a chalky nap. Maybe her baby doll needs a chalky nappy change. Either way, by the end of it, her hair, clothes, and face are all one big rainbow.
As we play, we talk about the colours she’s using, how chalk feels when you press harder, and how you can make lovely dust to smear everywhere (which, of course, she does). We’ve even drawn her friends and favourite nursery practitioners (nope, not naming names), chatting about which colours remind us of each person, whether it’s their hair colour or something they wear often.
When she’s finished, her only job is to pop the chalk eggs back in the tub. The drawings? We leave them be, either to see how they change in the rain or to add more next time.
Mud digging
Anyone who knows our little girl knows how much she loves mess. And dirt. And bugs.
We’re lucky to have a little veg patch and an unused flower bed in our garden. While Dad gardens, she grabs her own trowel and gets stuck in, digging holes, piling up mud, and getting excited when she finds a worm or spider.
It’s the perfect way to involve her in what we’re doing, while also giving her a sense of independence to potter around on her own. And of course, if we spot a bug, we talk about what it is, where it might be off to, and how to use our kind, gentle hands.
We also spend a lot of time reinforcing that mud doesn't go in your mouth. Neither do ladybirds.
The joy of the clean-up
One of my favourite parts of messy play is what comes next: cleaning up.
I’m not exactly a neat freak (it’s where she gets it from), but I do love that messy play gives her a chance to learn about tidying in a fun, relaxed way. We make it part of the game, counting down to tidy-up time, giving her little responsibilities, and celebrating when she does it. All the toys and bits she’s used are within reach, so she can put them back herself, always supervised, of course. It gives her that wonderful feeling of, “I did that! I’m a big girl!”
Even if she is still covered in chalk.
And maybe has a spider in her hand.
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