Mess Around Mess Kit – Dinosaur Messy Play Review

Rainy days in lockdown always leave me stuck for ideas on how to entertain Ashley all day! My go to activity for most days involves getting out and about as you know. So the activity boxes we’ve been reviewing for Club Hub  have been amazing. They come with everything you need to do fun activities at home, so on a rainy day they are a life saver! The latest one we’ve reviewed was a dinosaur detective mess kit by Mess Around and we loved it.

We were gifted this kit to review as part of our role as brand reps for Club Hub. Club Hub is is the biggest UK directory for kids activities. You can search for classes near you on their website or app as well as online classes and activity boxes.

Who Are Mess Around

They run multi-sensory, messy play clubs and slime experiences across the UK for under 10’s. In addition to the clubs they also have loads of messy play and slime kits available for home delivery so you can create your own messy set ups.

Dinosaur Detective Mess Kit

What’s Included?

The kit we were sent was dinosaur themed, which was great as Ashley is dinosaur mad! The kit comes with the following:

  • Salt Dough fossils
  • Cloud Dough
  • Lava Slime
  • Sand
  • Top Soil
  • Frozen dinosaur egg
  • 2 small toy Dinosaurs
  • Dinosaurs spikes (coloured pasta)
  • Herbivores Hay (wood shavings)
  • Optional Mini-messy tray (random colour allocated)

We already had our own messy tray, which is a small table top one, but if you don’t then it’s only an extra £1.50 to get a small one provided with your kit.

How to Use?

The kit comes with a really handy set of instructions which tells you how to use everything and set it up. Most of it you just need to chuck it in the tray and play! The frozen dinosaur egg is the only thing you need to do ahead of time as it requires freezing overnight.

Play Ideas

The instructions include loads of play ideas for each of the materials. These include suggestions on extra things you could add or the best utensils to use. For example using a Calpol syringe to melt the dinosaur egg, or a potato masher to squish the Gelli-Baff.

We used a few of the suggested ideas, like adding salt to the dinosaur egg and a brush to uncover the dinosaur bones. Most of the time she was happy just being left to use her own imagination and play with it all though.

How Long Did it Last?

If stored properly and kept dry loads of the items will keep for a long time. By the time we’d finished playing everything was all mixed together and wet so most of it wasn’t worth keeping.

We left it out for her to play with for 4 days and she played with it every day. Every time she was in the kitchen she would go back and play with it some more. It definitely gave her hours of fun!

What Additional Items Did We Add?

As the set only comes with 2 small dinosaurs we added some of our own to it. The dinosaur set I have is just a cheap one from Amazon and comes with 14 dinosaurs, a plastic mountain and log and a play mat (which is tiny and a bit useless). It is cheap and cheerful, but perfect for this sort of messy play activity. The additional dinosaurs definitely made it a lot more fun.

KandyToys 18 Piece Dinosaurs Play Set in Tub – Prehistoric Playset with Toy Dinosaurs and Play Mat (affiliate link*)

I also used my own messy play tray, which I purchased recently from eBay. This is just a small table top one as for me the big tuff trays require so much more time to set up I just never get round to it. This one is quick and easy and takes up much less space, meaning we can have it out for longer.

40cm Messy Play Tray

Other Available Kits

In addition to the dinosaur detective kit they also have a few other themes available to buy. At the moment these are:

  • Gruffalo
  • Hey Duggee
  • Peppa Pig (additional £3)

Plus a more generic kit called Messy-Mayhem. The themes change so it might be that these have changed when you come to order.

Everything Else You Need to Know

How much do they cost: £20.50 (plus £4 postage) or £23 (plus £5.10 postage) including the messy play tray.

Where do I order from: They are all available to order via their website: www.messarounduk.com/oxfordshire/shop/

What age range are they suitable for: 6 months to 5 years under adult supervision

Where’s Ashley’s cute dinosaur top from: her long sleeve dinosaur top is from Style My Kid, they have loads of different ones to choose from. Click here to buy.

 

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means Baby in Bucks gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate and Affiliate Partner of Style My Kid, Baby in Bucks earns from qualifying purchases. All opinions remain my own and I would only ever recommend products that I would buy myself (or in most cases have bought).

 

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