Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/making-a-mud-kitchen-for-mud-day/5022374/
Why Would You Want a Mud Kitchen in Your Preschool?Do your children frequently bring you a cup of tea made from soil and water, perhaps with a couple of spoons of sand as sugar?
Do you often see them making each other hot chocolate, ice cream, or a special birthday cake?
Do you remember making mud pies?
Does the memory of making rose petal perfume give you a sudden tingle of pleasure?
Mud kitchens provide something quite different to a soil digging patch, whilst also being much more easily managed. A mud kitchen or café includes elements of both the much-loved domestic corner and baking from indoor play, which are then hugely enriched through the special nature of being outside. Children from two years old onwards play in this way, frequently saying that they are making some kind of food; so the idea of a ‘kitchen’ works well in preschool contexts. For older children, this may well become more of a ‘laboratory’ where the scientific exploration goes further and into more detail about how things work.
Mud kitchens work well all year ‘round, and need to be seen as a core element of continuous provision outside. Responding to young children’s deep curiosities and satisfying their ...