Learning & Development: Messy play for under-threes - Play ball

Babies and young children find small balls easy to grasp and pick up. Why not add them to dry and wet messy play mixtures to provide new and exciting sensory experiences?

Organisation

- Consider beforehand how babies will access the activity and plan suitable containers with this in mind. For example, creative experiences involving paint and water are better in shallow trays; larger quantities of natural materials such as leaves, twigs and sand can be presented in deeper sand and water trays; put shredded paper hide-and-seek games in cardboard boxes and baskets, and lighter balls in paddling pools.

- Introduce a variety of balls with interesting textures, according to the age and manual dexterity of the children involved. For example, small solid balls are easy to grasp, but airflow balls might be more suitable for gripping in sticky mixtures. Other types to include might be balls that make a noise, such as those designed for babies, dogs or cats, or sports balls, such as for golf or table tennis.

- Ensure that babies wear cover-all aprons, or take off all their clothes apart from their nappies. Provide handwashing facilities nearby. Be prepared for lots of disruption!

- Discard the messy mixtures after use. Wash the balls and dry thoroughly before storing in an open net bag.

- Consider health and safety at all times. Make sure that balls are too big for the children to put in their mouths (avoid marbles and beads for obvious reasons). Examine the size of holes in airflow balls, as little fingers can become stuck in these! Check with parents for allergies to substances such as colouring.

Shallow trays

- Provide two shallow trays alongside a container of balls. Put a sheet of white paper in the bottom of one tray and a layer of powder paint mixed with water and cornflour in the other. Play with a ball in the tray while a child watches, patting it, pushing it and dropping it until it is well covered in the mixture. Pick the ball up and push it along the sheet of paper to create a print. Encourage the child to choose a ball to put in the paint. Try sponge balls, airflow balls and hard smooth balls.

- Put a layer of dry sand in a tray and let the children roll the balls along to make trails and drop them to make mini-craters.

- Provide balls of dough alongside a selection of hard balls. Observe children as they explore the contents of the tray, introducing the words 'hard' and 'soft' to describe the balls they are handling.

Deep trays

- Hide balls in deep sand, leaves or shredded paper and try to find them together.

- Drop balls on to water, or pat them as they float, to make big splashes.

Baskets and boxes

- Fill a cardboard box with shredded paper and a selection of balls to find. Younger babies will enjoy sitting in a larger shallow box of paper.

- Hide unusual home-made balls - balls of wool, string, garden twine, pom-poms, stuffed socks, screwed up and taped paper balls - in a basket of scrunched up tissue.

Paddling pools

- Fill an empty blown-up paddling pool with some airflow balls and shredded paper. Sit the babies in the pool so they can have fun exploring, hiding and picking up balls.

- Float balls of different sizes, including a large beach ball, in a pool and sit the babies among them under close 1:1 supervision.

ADULT ROLE

- Involve the youngest babies in lots of touching and feeling while you play with the balls with them. For example, pick up a ball and cup it in the baby's hands, saying, 'Look, Jane, a ball. It's a smooth round ball!' Hold her hand and stroke the ball gently with her fingers.

- Once a baby can reach out and grip an object, observe their explorations and note their actions. For example, if a baby picks up a ball and rolls it in paint, model this yourself but then extend the movement, perhaps by dropping the ball into the paint first so that it splashes as it lands.

- As you play alongside the baby, make up little rhymes that describe your actions, such as 'roly-poly, roly-poly, roly-poly', or sounds you hear, like 'squelch, splosh, squelch, splosh'.

What next?

- Provide challenge for toddlers with bowls of paint in primary colours to dip balls into so that they can create new colours when rolling them on the paper. (Wash the balls regularly to stop the paint in the bowls from getting mixed up too quickly.)

- Develop hand-eye co-ordination further by providing fishing nets so toddlers can try to catch light balls in a paddling pool of water.