Another great article I wanted to share- about MESSY PLAY!

http://asensorylife.com/messy-play.html from Angie Voss, OTR Messy Play! Picture Homemade paint, shaving cream, and painting tools Picture In the tub with no water for a contained messy zone! Picture Let em go to town! It seems as though the art of messy play is lost. From my experience, the typical American home and lifestyle does not offer messy play as a part of early childhood anymore. Now if you let your 10 month old smear the spaghetti all over the highchair tray and in their hair and you let your 2 year old sit in mud puddles, and you encourage some type of messy play each and every day... then you don’t need to read another word of this page. Now if you fall into the other category….then keep on reading... In our super-hygienic and academic-focused world, messy play and mud pies are words not known by children. Messy play is a crucial sensory stage of development for the tactile system and the nervous system for gross and fine motor development, body awareness, bilateral integration, left/right discrimination, and self regulation…just to name a few. Encouraging messy play on a DAILY basis will "do the body good". Let your child know it is ok to get messy, show them how to dress for the mess. Designate a messy zone and messy time…so they know when and where it is ok to get messy. Explore new textures and encourage tactile experiences. Let baking and cooking be a time to get messy…dig in! Messy play in the back yard on a warm or hot day is the easiest clean up ever….just a garden hose away . Beginning with infancy, let your baby feed him/herself, dump the baby food jar right on the tray and let em go for it. Bath time is an excellent time for messy play. Use play foam soaps, Sudsy Mudsy, or tub paint. The bath tub is also an excellent contained spot for messy play (without the water). Use a tub of cool whip, pudding, yogurt and let the child paint their whole body. THEN give them a bath, you are already there! Finger paint, finger paint, finger paint. Cook a big pot of pasta, add a little oil and let cool. This is quite the sensory experience for the hands and feet. A shaving cream slip and slide outdoors in the summer or put the shaving cream on the slide in the backyard, and watch them fly! Use soft paint brushes and pudding and let your kiddo paint himself from head to toe. And get creative...the possibilities are endless!