Have you considered putting a mud kitchen on your playground?
If so, I would like to share my two cents worth. Consider a movable mud kitchen.
A simple movable mud kitchen provides children with the raw materials to create whatever they can imagine. It is open-ended and . . . . well. . . . movable.
I can still remember making mud pies for my pet dachshund, Bobo. My mother gave me old pots and pans, spoons and measuring cups in the backyard. I would use a bench and pretend to be a dog chef.
No specially built mud kitchen.
Just me, dirt, water and real pots and pans.
Here's how a local outdoor preschool set up their mud kitchen. It is old fashioned goodness.
Basic materials:
A bench or plank of wood sitting on top of cinder blocks or stack of wood.
Tree stumps
A steel wire shelf
Buckets
Bowls
Cups
Strainers
Tea pots
Pots and pans
Spoons
Ladles
A simple plank of wood sitting on cinder blocks or wood pieces. A tree stump.
Ask a local builder for wood scraps.
A steel wire shelf to store mud kitchen supplies.
Assorted mud kitchen items. Enamel tea pot, cups, pots, and buckets.
Here’s a peek at the movable mud kitchen in action. . .
A tea party being prepared for the fairies. Notice the little rock cupcakes and the bark bread?
Young doctors prepare a healing bath for some sad worms.
A simple movable mud kitchen can become anything.
I have a brand new magazine called Methods. It is free!
The first issue is all about Messy Play! Inside this issue I share some of my favorite messy play activities for water, mud, clay, petals and more.
Click here for my favorite Messy Play in the first issue of Methods Magazine.
I'd love to hear about your “mud kitchens” – past and present! Do you offer mud play? Did you engage in mud play as a child?
Sometimes we add rock people..made by children to our mud play..
Ooooo! What fun!
Mud play is awesome and such an important part of being a child. I also remember how I came home soaked in mud / dried flakey mud – with a huge smile in my heart. I achieved something: a new recipe, I was able to feed my teddy bears, I improved my cake decorating skills by adding different colored flower petals etc.
Oh my gosh! I love this! Mud is such a living, nurturing, organic material in early childhood.
I love this! Had to share on From Fingerprints To Masterpieces.
Yay! Thank you wonderful Helen!
In the summer I would turn on the hose in the back yard for my boys and they would play for hours making rivers, dams and pools
I love this! Isn’t a water hose a fundamental part of raising children?
Totally love this mud play. I had lots of free play time when I was young so I always played with sand, water, mud and rocks.
I offered let my students play with tree sticks and fallen leaves during recess. They use the tree sticks as the barbecue sticks and the leaves as meat to make delicious barbecue! Sometimes they added sand as the salt and pepper. They were so creative.
Also I let them collect tree sticks back to the classroom to have a “Not A Stick” lesson to drew and created a picture, some students drew a wand/a tree/an oar with the sticks.
This is so rich! What would childhood be without sticks? I think about the incredible capacities that are being built with imaginative/pretend play. We so underestimate the deep and profound impact of making something out of nothing, of transforming one thing (stick) into something new (barbecue sticks). There are so many things this is building. One is it is building the ability to conceptualize what you can not see – a skill needed to read words and process the words.
I am sending this over to a school with a prek program. I hope it helps them create a more playful learning environment.
Thank you.
I think many schools tend to think the Mud Kitchen should look like a “play” kitchen. It is such a mistake! Having watched children play with the simple, movable version for over a year – I am convinced – simple is better!
My son when he was 4 set up a kitchen outside! He called himself Chef Ronnie Tasso! All sorts of great things came out of his kitchen. He even got his 2 year old brother to sample his wares! Lol
I love this! What precious play!
This is awesome and so important for children it’s amazing what comes from simple play in a mud kitchen. I wish I could convince the plant department in my board what fun a mud kitchen really is.
Me oh my! The plant/grounds departments are not so keen on mud play. I think if you can find a place where the mud/dirt would not infer with gardens and such. There is a paradigm shift that has to happen for school grounds to be considered with the lens of play that is open-ended and sensory driven.
We have mud play everyday at school. Lots of healthy soups come out of the kitchen.
You are so lucky! I bet amazing soups are stirred and cooked!
We love to “mix it” up with mud kitchen play as well. We’ve recently established an area for mud digging. During dry spells we set a large igloo cooler nearby so children can get their ingredients. Add some mulch, a bit of sand, find a stick and Enjoy!
I LOVE THIS! This is so brilliant! Digging up the dirt was one of my favorite parts of mud play. Thank you for sharing this incredible idea.
Fabulous ideas, super simple and so much wonder!
I really enjoyed this post and wonderful pictures. You just remind me about my past specifically childhood. We used to play in mud kitchen after school off. First of all, all my brothers, sisters and me collected materials that was required for play. I remember how we celebrated our birthday’s by making mud cakes in childhood. We used to mix sand and water, then we made cake from it. After that, we put sticks on that cake as candles. Also, we had lot of fun in making tea by mixing small amount of sand in water and leaves and flowers along it. Further, we used to make pan cakes of mud in our mud kitchen. I would say that what were the wonderful days.
I remember making mud pies and trying to feed them to my poor dog, Bobo. Stirring in weeds, grass cuttings, rocks, crushed sticks…I would spend hour!
I definitely remember making mud pies all the time. I would with my neighbour friend on the edge of the lawn where there was lots of nice mud so we could mix up our mud pies. Always so much fun and such a great idea to have for outdoor play!