Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Outdoors - Messy play for under-threes

Practitioners caring for very young children are often unsure about whether to introduce babies to paint for sensory exploration.

As long as non-toxic paint is used, and babies are supervised carefully, then it is a wonderful resource for very young children to explore.

Organisation

At the Randolph Community Centre in Evenwood Village, County Durham, babies have regular access to paint. As with all substances, staff first check with parents for allergies.

Manager Jill Tomlinson says, 'We buy non-toxic paint in squeezy bottles and squirt blobs of different colours into a builder's tray for the youngest babies.

'Individual babies are stripped down to a nappy and lifted into the tray. They can then sit with adult support, or lie on their tummies, so that they can wiggle their toes in the paint or pat it with their hands.

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