A mud kitchen is a great way to get children outdoors and playing in the great outdoors most creatively and imaginatively. Whether building, baking, mixing, painting, or potion making, the activities offered by a mud kitchen are limited only to the imagination!
Explore with Messy Play
Learning should be full of magical, memorable experiences. A mud kitchen in the heart of your setting provides children with a wonderful array of learning opportunities. From encouraging creativity and influencing language development, to supporting STEAM learning. Messy play through the seasons has educational relevance across age groups and curriculum areas. Children will love to mix, mash, blend and sieve materials, whilst developing mathematical, scientific and communication skills.
Supporting Early STEAM
A Mud Kitchen allows children to engage in the following learning activities:
- Changes
- Properties
- Textures
- Volume
- Materials
- Capacity
- Measurement
- Senses
Mud Kitchens come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes; they can be sturdy, quality-made, and built to last, or constructed from second-hand hand wooden palettes. However they are acquired or built, mud kitchens have become an essential and valuable piece of outdoor equipment
Making the most of your mud kitchen
- Include an array of ingredients and tools to facilitate investigation and scientific exploration.
- Get children outdoors through the seasons – rain, snow, or sun – just ensure children are dressed appropriately!
- Winter is a wonderful season, and snow and ice make perfect ingredients to explore with Mud Kitchens. Don’t worry if you don’t have real snow – Instant Snow and frozen ice cubes make excellent substitutes.
- Ice cream tubs make great containers for freezing small world figures, such as Arctic animals, or natural items, such as pine cones, leaves and shells. Turn out the frozen ice blocks for children to explore and chip away at, discovering elements frozen in time!
- Fill rubber gloves with water, tie the ends and freeze. Add food colouring and bio-glitter for added colour and sparkle! Children could explore cause and effect by squirting them with warm water. Do they melt quicker if the water is warm?
