Benefits of Messy Play
Messy play is essential for early childhood development and offers several opportunities for learning. When designing a classroom for young kids, it is important to nurture their growth in all areas to prepare them for kindergarten.
1. Physical Development
Children should be given toys to learn and develop hand coordination and fine motor skills. Activities like pouring, spooning and stacking will help enhance their coordination. On the other hand, they can develop motor skills by practicing cutting, using tongs and writing in crayons. Hands-on play also gives them an opportunity to interact with each other.
2. Better communication
When playing, children will have a chance to speak as they communicate with their friends. They will learn how to use gestures and words, to share toys, negotiate plans and explain actions. Teachers can ask simple questions to develop their thinking skills. Narrating the alphabet during messy play leads to better understanding of written text, and will prepare them for kindergarten. Moreover, reading stories to them will improve their narrative skills as well.
3. Social and emotional development
It also encourages children to try out new experiences since they are always full of curiosity. This can help build their self-esteem and self-confidence. Through hands-on play, children can develop problem-solving skills, planning and concentration. Working with their friends fosters mutual understanding and self-respect.
4. Builds creativity
Through hands-on-play, children are given opportunities with various kinds of materials to develop creativity and imagination. They learn how to classify and identify items, try out problems and observe the outcome.
5. Better performance in class
Statistics also show that messy play helps children learn mathematics faster. Through messy play, children have numerous opportunities for calculating, counting and measurement. Since a number of activities involve numbers, they will learn different symbolic meaning.
Although there are no known disadvantages of messy play, adult supervision is of utmost importance.
