“Stop with the structure, the control and the constant lessons and LET THEM PLAY!”
For Selina Mellon, messy play is an enjoyable, but ultimately serious business – and an approach she's hoping to promote as widely as possible…
I used to work in the autism unit at a secondary special needs school. I remember struggling a bit with the school curriculum, and feeling that I wasn’t getting the best from the children in terms of communication and social skills.
That’s where Kids Creative came from – wanting to work with children in a different way, to promote what messy and sensory play can do for children and show how beneficial they can be.
I hold workshops outside for older children and have links with a couple of schools, but at the Kids Creative studio I mostly work with younger children. I offer drop-in sessions in the mornings and afternoons, during which children can arrive at any point within those times. I’ve got a sensory room upstairs (albeit quite a low-tech one) that’s usually themed around a story.
At the moment the theme is Stick Man, so right now the children can weave sticks to make swans’ nest, make a family tree out of different fabrics and lights. They can explore the different activities at their own pace, then come downstairs where we’ve got different art and messy play activities.
Be in the moment
I have a philosophy that informs what I do:
Let them play! If you want creative, independent adults who are in control of their emotions let them do that now.
Stop with the structure, the control and the constant lessons and LET THEM PLAY! – In the mud, the mess and with the household objects that they love so much
I only wrote it recently, after I’d had a couple of parents in who wrote on Facebook afterwards that they were surprised I wasn’t structuring the session.
In my eyes, if you’re telling the children what to do, you’re not letting them just play. The parents had expected a set structure and for things to be very adult led – but that wasn’t what it was about.
The experience got me thinking more about the idea of just letting them play. So often in society it’s hard to give children those opportunities – it’s more, ‘You need to get these grades,’ ‘You need to do this,’ ‘You need to do that’.
Some parents are now visiting classes that put structures in place for their baby from when they’re just six months old. There seems to be little sense of how important it is to just let them experience the world, play with things and be in the moment, in the here and now.
I’m a mum to a three-year-old myself, and while you’ve obviously got to have some structure and regular routines in place for your child, you also need to give them opportunities to explore things for themselves.
Striking a balance
The way to do that is by policing those opportunities – giving children, say, an hour of unstructured time where only certain resources are put out. You’re letting them create, explore and experience child-led fun, within the boundaries of a safe environment.
What you’re able to do when organising messy play activities will depend on the children you have in and what age they are. If we have a grouper of younger ones who are fond of eating everything, we obviously won’t use the inedible stuff and instead go with the cornflour and food colouring. With the older ones are in, I can expand a bit and try using different types of slimes.
I tend to keep things quite small, with the children using little trays at the table. I do have a big, tough tray, but rarely use it in studio because it’s such a small space. When I get that out, things can get a little too messy – the floor gets slippy, and it just doesn’t work.
The little trays let me set up several different stations, which lets me change things up for the children offer choice of activities for them to do. At the moment we’re some slime in combination with sticks, stones and eyes that children can use to make their own Stick Man, in keeping with the theme, and I’ll supervise and enter the activity as it goes along.
An integral part of growing up
Through the workshops I have delivered in schools I’ve found that messy play works really well with children of all ages. I’ve worked with lots of SEN secondary schools, as well as primaries and nurseries, and children’s love for play never goes away.
Even the most streetwise kids are usually happy to get involved, play and smile along with everyone else. Messy play is a great way to open up conversations which would otherwise never take place, and to help children work on their social skills as a whole group while getting them laughing with each other.
I’ve recently set up the ‘Emotional Wellbeing Project‘, which will aim to promote sensory, messy and creative play in all its forms. and get the word out there that it’s not ‘just a bit of fun’, but an integral part of growing up and something from which so many lessons can be learnt. Children need to be able to move about, jump up and down and feel mess on their hands; it’s their body telling them that they need to feel, and who are we to stop that?
I’ll be working with local schools to create a sensory/mindfulness garden at Wythenshawe Park, where people young and old will be able to come together and experience colours, lights, sounds and smells, get messy, create something new – and enjoy the here and now.
Selina Mellon is a teacher, artist and the founder of Kids Creative; for more information, visit kidscreative.org.uk or follow @kidscreativeuk
