Messy play: Tutty fruity at Open House, Bukit Mertajam, Penang

Did you know, messy play - in addition to being fun and interesting for babies and young children, encourage children to explore and investigate?

Other reasons messy play or sensory play is beneficial for children include helping children to build nerve connections in the brain. It encourages the development of motor skills.

Generally, sensory play includes any activity that stimulates your young child's senses: touch, smell, taste, movement, balance, sight and hearing. Sensory activities facilitate exploration and naturally encourage children to use scientific processes as they play, create, investigate and explore.

'Messy Play' can help children in many ways, to calm down, express their feelings, experiment with different materials, learn about textures and learn hand-eye coordination or to practice drawing, measuring and mixing skills.

Well, this is not Balqis and Bilal first time. They have been joining messy play organized by Open House Event Space and Dr Nurhaya Lactation Centre for quite a while now.

Balqis might not need the sensory skill anymore but Mummy wants her to play around and meet other people often to improve her social skills.

For Bilal, he still need this as at his age, it's important for him to develop more motor skill. It's the important phase of a children.

For this Messy Play with Tutty Fruity theme, there were 7 section in total. Each section provides different set of skills for the kids to learn.

Calm before storm. Hahaha!

Small world

There tropical fruits for the kids to explore! And happy to 'sell' the fruits too. There were trucks for them to bring their fruits to the stalls.

Creative play

The kids used lime juice to stamp on paper using water diy color. As they do the stamping, they also squeeze out the lime and smell the beautiful scent of lime and the texture of the lime itself.

Constructive play with table top.

The table top play section might be the kids' favourite this time. There were few types of fruit like banana, watermelon and grapes for them to make popsicle, and of cos they can eat! They can also put on some honey and colourful sprinkles.

Sand Play

The fruits were introduced to the kids behind a pile of leaves and puff.

Dramatic Play

The kids were excited to pretend play as a farmer!

Water station

The baby tub is filled with blue coloured water. There are cucumber slice and white nata de coco inside. The kids should be able to feel the slimy, slippery texture of the cucumber and nata de coco.

Sensory play

There are ice with lemon slices for this section. The kids could feel the cold stimulation for their sensory, the scent of lemon to smell and the yellow nana de coco for them to feel.

Remember when we were little, we played with sand and rain all the time. Due to some reason like afraid to let our kids play outside on their own which normally ended up with them spending too much time watching television or playing gadgets, these messy play or sensory play activity is one way to help them improve their motor skills, in a fun way.

Well at least Mummy knows for sure the kids had so much fun.

Sampai orang nak kemas pun ada budak tak sedar diri pergi berendam like no one's business...

Can't wait for our next messy play!