Messy Play: The Best Way For Babies And Toddlers To Learn

Did you know that messy play is one of the best ways to support your child’s development? Engaging in sensory activities sparks creativity, strengthens motor skills and enhances cognitive growth. At Fennies, we embrace messy play as a core part of early learning, and now you can too! We’ve gathered some of our favourites!

• Sensory Tray Activities 
• Water Play Fun 
• STEM Experiments
• Edible Messy Play
• Creative Messy Play 

So, roll up those sleeves, it’s time to get messy!

Sensory Tray Activities

Sensory trays are an exciting way to encourage your child’s curiosity, problem-solving skills and communication. These hands-on activities introduce different textures, colours and materials, making learning fun and interactive. Try these easy sensory tray ideas at home:

1. Sparkly Sensory Fireworks

Turn your sensory tray into a dazzling display with this glittery activity! Simply mix biodegradable glitter, hair gel and sparkly pom-poms in a shallow tray. As your child squashes their hands through the gel, they’ll develop fine motor skills while exploring different textures.

Top Tip: Talk to your child about how fireworks light up the night sky, introducing them to new vocabulary while they play.

2. Rainbow Oats

A vibrant, taste-safe sensory experience! Rainbow oats are a fun way to introduce colours and textures. Simply mix oats with food colouring or liquid watercolours, then let them dry before adding them to your tray. Your little one will love scooping, pouring and feeling the different textures.

Baby-Friendly Tip: For younger babies who may mouth objects, opt for food colouring instead of liquid watercolours to ensure a taste-safe experience.

3. Rice and Ice Sensory Tray

This sensory tray combines hot and cold, wet and dry textures to provide a unique learning experience. Fill half of the tray with rice and the other half with coloured ice cubes made from frozen food colouring and water. Encourage your child to mix the elements and watch as the ice melts, changing colours and textures in real time.

STEM Learning: This activity introduces basic scientific concepts like melting, colour mixing and temperature changes, a perfect first step into STEM learning!

4. Safe Sensory ‘Mud’

Love the idea of messy play but want a safe and non-sticky alternative? Try this taste-safe mud made from cocoa powder and water. Add toy animals, cars, or construction trucks, and let your child’s imagination run wild. This activity encourages storytelling, sensory exploration and imaginative play, all crucial for early cognitive development.

5. Taste-Safe Sand Tray

Instead of traditional sand, create an edible version using blended breadcrumbs and porridge oats with a drop of yellow food colouring. Add mini diggers, cups, and spoons to transform it into a mini construction site. Providing small scoops or spoons to strengthen your child’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills while they dig and pour.

Water Play Fun for Babies and Toddlers

Water play is a fantastic way to engage a child’s senses while developing hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills and early science concepts. Here are some of our favourite messy play ideas with water:

1. Water Tray Play

Babies love splashing, but before they can sit up independently, water play can feel tricky. A simple solution? Fill a shallow baking tray with water and place it on the floor during tummy time. Your baby will love splashing, reaching and feeling the cool water while strengthening their muscles. Combining tummy time with sensory play enhances both physical and cognitive development.

2. Soothing Lavender Water Play

Perfect for winding down after a long day, this activity involves adding fresh lavender to a tray of warm water. Swirl the water gently with your child, letting them feel and smell the calming lavender scent.

Relaxation Tip: Recreate this activity in the bathtub before bedtime to help your little one relax.

3. DIY Bath Crayons

Make bathtime extra fun with homemade bath crayons! Mix soap flakes, warm water and food colouring to create washable crayons that let your child draw on the bath tiles. This combines sensory play with creativity and colour exploration. It also encourages early mark-making, which is great preparation for when they start to learn to write.

4. Foamy Fun Sensory Tray

Create fluffy soap foam using whipped baby wash or shaving foam and let your child explore its soft, squishy texture. Add bath toys, animal figurines or small cups for extra fun.

Underwater Adventure: Hide small sea creatures in the foam and encourage your child to “find” them, helping them develop their problem-solving skills.

5. Lemon Water Tub

Transform water play into a multi-sensory experience by adding sliced lemons to a shallow water tray. Babies and toddlers will enjoy exploring the citrusy scent, squeezing the fruit and feeling the slippery texture.

Did you know? The smell of lemon has been found to reduce anxiety and promote relaxation.

STEM-Inspired Messy Play for Babies and Toddlers

Messy play is not just about having fun, it’s also a fantastic way to introduce STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) concepts from an early age. Babies and toddlers are natural scientists, constantly experimenting with cause and effect. Whether they’re exploring textures, testing how objects react to water or mixing colours, they’re developing essential problem-solving and cognitive skills.

Here are some of our favourite STEM messy play ideas that will spark curiosity and creativity!

1. Baby Play Goop

Goop is an amazing non-Newtonian substance and it behaves like a solid when squeezed, but then flows like a liquid when released. This simple recipe requires just cornflour and water, making it safe for babies and easy to clean up.

STEM Learning: This activity introduces scientific properties like viscosity and pressure. Encourage your child to squeeze, poke and scoop the goop to observe how it changes.

2. Sensory Sand Foam

This two-ingredient sand foam is a wonderful messy play idea that introduces a completely new texture. Simply mix sand and shaving foam until you achieve a fluffy, mouldable consistency. This activity builds tactile awareness and strengthens fine motor skills as little hands squish, scoop and shape the foam.

Language Development Tip: Ask your child to describe how the foam feels, is it soft, squishy, rough or smooth? This helps develop early language skills.

3. Colour Melt Experiment – Ice Meets Science!

Children love playing with ice, and this colour melt experiment is a great way to explore temperature changes and colour mixing. To set this up, freeze coloured water in an ice cube tray, then let your child explore what happens when the ice starts to melt. Encourage your child to guess what happens when two different coloured ice cubes melt together, will they create a new colour?

Summer Fun: Perfect for outdoor play on a hot day, where the ice will melt naturally in the sun!

4. DIY Sensory Bags – A Mess-Free Sensory Experience

If you’re looking for a low-mess alternative to sensory play, sensory bags are a fantastic option. Simply fill a ziplock bag with hair gel, small toys, or beads, seal it with duct tape, and let your child squish and move the objects inside. This activity stimulates visual and tactile senses while strengthening hand muscles through squishing and squeezing.

Baby-Friendly Play: Ideal for tummy time, where babies can press on the bag and watch how the objects move.

Edible Messy Play – Safe for Curious Little Ones!

For younger babies who explore the world by putting everything in their mouths, taste-safe messy play is the way to go. These activities offer all the benefits of messy play without the worry of harmful ingredients.

1. Baby-Safe Cloud Dough

Cloud dough is a fantastic sensory material that feels soft and moldable. This taste-safe recipe uses just coconut oil and organic baby rice cereal to create a baby-friendly alternative to traditional playdough.

Fine Motor Fun: Babies will love squishing, squeezing and moulding the dough, which helps strengthen their hand muscles for later skills like holding a pencil.

2. Rainbow Spaghetti – A Colourful Sensory Experience

A classic messy play activity, rainbow spaghetti is simple to make and incredibly engaging. Cook spaghetti, then dye it with food colouring to create vibrant strands that your child can squish, pull and explore. This activity improves fine motor skills as babies grasp and pull the spaghetti strands, helping develop their pincer grip.

Toddler Play Idea: Give older children blunt toy knives or scissors so they can practice chopping and cutting, enhancing hand-eye coordination.

3. Edible Paint – A Safe Start to Creativity

Introduce your baby to painting in a taste-safe way by making homemade edible paint. Use yogurt mixed with natural food colouring or blended fruit purées for safe and colourful creations. Let your child use their hands, sponges or brushes to spread the paint across paper.

Bonus Learning: Talk about colours as they mix, what happens when red and yellow mix together?

4. Jiggling Jelly – A Multi-Sensory Delight

Jelly isn’t just fun to eat, it’s also a great sensory material! Hide small toys inside a tray of set jelly and let your child dig, squish and explore to find them. This activity boosts problem-solving skills as children figure out how to extract the hidden objects.

Make it colourful: Use different colours of jelly to make it visually stimulating!

5. Taste-Safe Cake Dough – Like Playdough, But Yummier!

If your child loves playdough, they’ll adore this cake-scented dough! Made from flour, vegetable oil, and cake mix, it’s completely safe if they decide to have a little nibble. It encourages imaginative play as the children can shape pretend cupcakes, cookies or mini cakes.

‍Get Involved: Let toddlers help with the mixing process to introduce early cooking skills!

Creative Messy Play – Unleashing Your Child’s Inner Artist

Before babies can talk or walk, they begin to express themselves through movement, touch, and colour. These artistic messy play ideas will help ignite creativity while encouraging fine motor skill development.

1. Baby Bubble Wrap Painting

Bubble wrap isn’t just for packaging, it’s also a fantastic sensory tool for painting! Tape a piece of bubble wrap to the floor, apply washable paint, and let your baby explore by crawling, stomping, or pressing their hands on it. The textures, popping sounds and colourful marks stimulate multiple senses at once.

Footprint Fun: Let your child walk across the bubble wrap for an extra creative effect!

2. Tummy Time Painting

Perfect for babies who aren’t quite ready to get fully messy, this no-mess painting activity involves placing a sealed plastic bag filled with paint on the floor during tummy time. As babies press and squish the bag, the colours mix inside, creating a beautiful masterpiece but without the mess!

Developmental Boost: Strengthens core muscles during tummy time while introducing cause-and-effect learning.

3. Messy Finger Painting

Finger painting is one of the best ways for babies and toddlers to explore colours and textures. Using non-toxic, washable paints, let your child create their own masterpiece by swirling, stamping and mixing colours with their hands. The cool, wet texture of the paint stimulates touch-based learning.

Colour Mixing Activity: Ask questions like "What happens when we mix blue and yellow?" to help your child understand how new colours are formed.

4. DIY Homemade Playdough

Playdough is a classic creative play material that helps strengthen fine motor skills while encouraging imaginative play. Try making your own taste-safe, homemade version using flour, salt, water, and vegetable oil. Provide cookie cutters, rolling pins, and stamps for added fun.

Cooking Connection: Let toddlers help mix the ingredients, it’s a great way to introduce early cooking skills!

5. Jelly Finger Painting

For younger babies who put everything in their mouths, jelly finger painting is a fantastic taste-safe alternative to traditional paints. Simply set jelly in different colours and let your child squish, spread, and "paint" on a tray or paper. Engages sight, touch, taste, and smell, making it a full sensory experience.

Extra Fun: Encourage your child to use their hands, spoons, or even toy cars to spread the jelly.

Why Messy Play is Important for Early Development

Messy play is more than just fun, it’s a powerful learning tool that benefits multiple areas of development.

1. Sensory Exploration

Messy play introduces babies and toddlers to a variety of textures and materials, helping them make sense of the world around them. Whether they’re squishing goop, scooping rainbow oats or splashing in water, these experiences stimulate brain development.

2. Fine Motor Skill Development

Activities like scooping rice, pinching playdough, and pouring water strengthen the small muscles in children’s hands and fingers. This is essential for skills like holding a pencil, using scissors and buttoning clothes later in life.

3. Cognitive Growth and Problem-Solving

Messy play encourages experimentation and discovery, teaching children about cause and effect. For example, watching ice melt or mixing colours can foster early scientific thinking.

4. Encouraging Creativity and Imagination

There’s no right or wrong way to engage in messy play! Open-ended activities allow children to make their own choices, boosting independence and imagination.

5. Social and Emotional Development

Messy play can be a calming, stress-relieving activity, helping children express emotions and self-regulate. Group messy play activities also promote turn-taking and communication skills.

Messy Play at Fennies Nurseries

At Fennies Nurseries, we understand the importance of sensory exploration and hands-on learning. That’s why messy play is integrated into our daily activities, helping children develop creativity, confidence and essential early skills.

Why choose Fennies for your child’s early education?

• Sensory-rich environments to enhance learning
• STEM-focused activities that promote problem-solving
• Creative messy play experiences that encourage imagination
• Qualified Early Years educators to guide development

Want to see how we incorporate play-based learning into our nursery curriculum? Book a tour at Fennies today!