Kids Zone: Mud Kitchens

Saturday, 10 August 2024 08:00

By Sara Whatley

Mud, glorious mud! Let the kids loose in the mud kitchen, says Sara Whatley, and learn to love mud pies!

The popularity of mud kitchens has grown and grown over the past few years. Nowadays you will find mud kitchens in most nursery and school settings, many public play areas and gardens, and also in your own private garden at home.

It’s always been known that children are never happier than when covered in mud, and having a dedicated area for this may help their play by giving them permission to get dirty. This sort of open-ended playing helps children to develop their skills in many areas, including imagination, fine and gross motor skills, social skills, and problem solving. It is also a very sensory experience, helping children to regulate emotions and stimulating their brain activity.

Physical benefits of playing in mud kitchens include staying active and healthy, and helping to reduce anxiety, stress and depression. Being outside does this naturally with exposure to nature and the elements, but mud especially is full of friendly bacteria (Mycobacterium Vaccae), which stimulates the immune system and helps the brain to release serotonin, the ‘happy’ chemical. And if you needed any more convincing how wonderful mud kitchens are, then you will be delighted to hear that they are easy to purchase ready made, but making your own is not too difficult either.

Here’s how I made one in our garden. I started with an old workbench and cut the legs down to size (leaving enough to sink into the ground). Then
I screwed two upright pieces of wood onto the legs at the back, and thin planks across the front to make a splash back area. To this I attached some small shelves.

For the sink I cut a hole out using a jigsaw, and found a lipped metal bowl to fit snugly in the hole. For the hob I cut sections from fallen trees and screwed them on, and the same for the knobs on the front.

Down below the sink and hob I added one big shelf at the bottom, and a slightly higher shelf just under the hob to create an oven. We found loads of kitchen wear in our local charity shop to kit it out, and I piled some loose earth just underneath the kitchen for ‘ingredients’!

The beauty of mud kitchens is they can be as simple or complicated as you like, and they are fun for children aged 2 – 12; that’s ten years of mud kitchen enjoyment for the children, and ten years of ‘eating’ mud pies for the adults. Delicious!

Kids Zone: Mud Kitchens

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