The Top 4 Extraordinary Benefits of Messy Play for Kids + Special Offer!
Messy and messes can be scary words for parents. But did you know making messes can actually benefit your child in extraordinary ways? We love all things messy. Why? Because messes are a part of learning, growing and having fun.
Quite naturally, messes are a part of childhood. This is the stage when your kids and/or toddlers are venturing into their very early stages of exploring and they need to observe and learn these skills and experiences to navigate this time. Instead of steering away from your child’s natural instinct, why not embrace it and channel it into messy fun that serves the kids well?
Top four benefits of messy play
Why is messy play so important? There are countless benefits to messy play, but we have identified the top 4 benefits! You will see how child development is the biggest benefit of messy play – it encourages development on multiple levels.
- Messy Play Allows Cognitive Development!
- Messy Play Fosters Communication and Language Development
- Messy Play Encourages Physical Development!
- Messy Play Nurtures Creativity
Messy play allows cognitive development
What is cognitive development? Cognitive development means how children think, explore and figure things out. It is the development of knowledge, skills, problem solving and arrangement, which help children to think about and understand the world around them
This refers to things like –
- Brainstorming (deciding how to achieve something)
- Execution (doing the tasks you identified in brainstorming)
- Problem-solving (learning how to fix unexpected issues that arise during execution)
- Learning (understanding what was done and how to use it next time)
Here are a few ways messy play supports cognitive development:
- Children practice brainstorming as they decide what materials to use. Ex: Construction paper? Paint? Crayons? Markers? Which color will I use to make the sun?
- Kids practice execution when they start putting their materials together.
- Kids have to problem-solve when their messy science experiment is getting a bit out of hand. Ex: mixing yellow and blue gave me green. I wanted yellow! Let’s try again.
- They learned that yellow and blue create green from their problem-solving.
- Critical thinking is inherent to messy play as kids observe, analyze, and identify things to change.
Learning these skills early on makes a smart kid and teaches your kid how to apply themself. It’s all about gaining these skills as early as possible.
Messy play fosters communication and language development
Another one of the benefits of messy play is it gives the kids the chance to practice communication skills.
This refers to things like –
- Vocabulary
- Speaking in words and even sentences!
- Communicating verbally and non-verbally
- Understanding others’ verbal and non-verbal language
Here are some ways messy play fosters communication and language skills:
- A child says all colors they are painting or coloring with. Ex: Yellow! Green! Blue! …. Purple! (You’ll see that wheel start to spin and eventually it will come easy. Now they know their colors!)
- Kids will learn descriptive words when talking about the texture of the materials they are using Ex: Smooth, rough, soft, squeaky, stinky.
- If you have more than one child or you have invited over kids from the neighborhood, you’ll see how your child tells their peers about what might happen next and they’ll learn what their peers think (verbal and nonverbal) Ex: funny faces, shocked faces, and all the WHOAS!
Messy play encourages physical development!
Let’s touch on physical development. Pun intended.
This refers to –
children’s abilities to use and control their bodies. Think motor skills and the five senses. Do you remember the five senses?
- Touch
- Smell
- Feel
- Hear
- Taste
Here are some ways messy play helps in this area:
- Little hands are strengthened as they squeeze paint bottles, knead, and play with dough.
- They develop motor skills as they draw in the line of their color/fill-in art templates and as they cut on the lines.
- When they’re experimenting, they identify new scents and tastes (p.s. It’s important to provide your child with toxin-free and natural materials.)
Messy play nurtures creativity!
Another one of the big benefits of messy play is that it lets kids be creative in their own ways. Creativity is defined as “the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas.”Messy plan is the best way to nurture creativity, as there are no close-ended tasks.
This refers to –
- How they dealt with problems.
- Their new communication/language skills will allow them to create a story about their journey. Something may be factual; some may be enhanced! It’s the idea of getting your kid to use all the skills we listed above to find their individuality and uniqueness.
Here are a few examples of creativity in messy play:
- Child shares with mom, dad, and schoolmates what they did during their experiment or craft project and what happened.
- When they accidentally mixed the wrong colors, their cognitive skills will allow them to nurture their creativity and find a work around.
- From their learning, they know what they will use next, based on their creative preferences.
Get messy and have fun!
Never forget the extraordinary benefits of messy play. You want your child to have fun and learn from every part of their experience without being tightly guided. This is the big difference between messy fun and just making a mess.
Instead of steering away from your child’s natural instinct, embrace it with our Limited Edition Yipes! Messy Crafts Box: the perfect gift for a kid in your life, as they will enjoy both the fun and the countless benefits of messy play—and be able to clean up after, too! The Yipes! Messy Crafts Box includes 12 Kid-Friendly Messy Crafts and 24 Yipes! Wipes. GET YOURS NOW!
More about Yipes!
Our story starts with a mom who developed Yipes! wipes to embrace the messy side of growing up. Designed specifically for kids who are ready to graduate from “baby wipes” to a wipe they feel confident using on their own. Yipes! wipes are the 1st face & hand wipe created to encourage kids to develop their own self-motivated healthy habits. Read more about the Yipes!® story here.
