Growth and Development

1. Sensory Stimulation: Messy play engages multiple senses simultaneously, providing a rich sensory experience. This stimulation helps create connections in various regions of the brain.

2. Neural Pathway Development: Manipulating different textures and materials during messy play helps carve out neural pathways. These pathways are like roads in the brain, facilitating information flow and skill development.

3. Fine Motor Skills: Activities like squeezing, squishing, and molding enhance fine motor skills. The intricate movements involved contribute to the development of specific brain regions associated with motor control.

4. Cognitive Growth: Exploring materials encourages cognitive growth by introducing concepts like cause and effect, texture differences, and basic scientific principles. This cognitive exercise fosters a foundation for future learning.

5. Creativity and Problem-Solving: Messy play is inherently open-ended, promoting creativity and problem-solving skills. As children experiment with materials, they learn to adapt, innovate, and discover new possibilities.

6. Emotional Regulation: Engaging in sensory activities can have a calming effect, promoting emotional regulation. It provides a constructive outlet for expressing and processing emotions.

7. Holistic Brain Development: Different textures and materials activate various brain regions. This holistic approach ensures that messy play contributes to well-rounded brain development, impacting areas responsible for sensory perception, motor skills, and cognitive functions.

Skill Building

Messy sensory play encourages physical skills like fine and gross motor, cognitive functions like language acquisition, problem solving, reasoning and decision making, spatial awareness, executive functioning skills like organization, order and task management.

Sensory play also supports two sensory systems not regularly listed at one of the “5 senses” the proprioceptive and vestibular systems. The proprioception sense is knowing where our body is in space. (Think : you know where your hand is without looking at it.) It also tells us how much force we need to exert when holding, pushing, pulling or lifting objects.

Our vestibular sense is the movement or balance sense, crucial as they gain more and more physical skills. Activities promote real life skills like pouring, grasping, scooping and measuring.

Sensory play is incredibly beneficial to emotional regulation through mindfulness, helping to calm big feelings by focusing on what our bodies are feeling. A lot of kiddos in often have very serious, concentrated looks on their faces.

Scientific Process

Babies are born knowing to learn through the scientific process, the innate ability to observe, investigate, experiment, process and organize information. Open ended, child led activities like messy play encourage your child to use this skill and strengthen making it easier and faster to do. Allowing your child to freely explore like this promotes self-guided, independent play, longer attention spans, persistence, self-confidence and sets your little one up for a life long love of learning.

The “freely” part can be tricky as things can get messy fast. Try moving things outdoors or join us in the park far away from your walls!

There are so many benefits to sensory play, but it’s also just really, really fun! Classes are a great way to offer this impactful play with the setup or cleanup.

Sensory Play Labs classes are designed to be immediately inviting, a chance to spend quality time doing something unique together, meet other parents and caregivers with music, bubbles and a relaxed environment that lets your little one take the lead or jump into the play right beside them!

Classes are currently made up of combined age groups 4 months-5 years The Tummy Timers, The Upright Bunch and the Toddlers Plus. Activities are created to be developmentally appropriate for each group building on skills they already have.