Where did our mud puddle go?
Date: 11th May 2016 @ 6:56am
We went outside full of good ideas to play in the mud, but we discovered the mud puddle had disappeared!!! It had been wide and wet all year but today it was very different.....
"It`s hard!" OH
"All the mud is gone!" HG
"It`s all dried up!" BM
The mud area was dry and cracked! The children tried jumping on it, picking it up, scraping it with their boots and hands, snapping the pieces, feeling the weight of big lumps, breaking them up into smaller lumps, crumbling the surface, investigating, experimenting...
"The puddle`s all changed" MM
"It all dried up `cos the sun made it hot!" CM
"We need some water!" JC
They made discoveries of long lost items, using utensils as tools...
"There`s something stuck in the mud! I`m digging it out and scraping it... It`s a spoon!" CM
"There`s something else in the mud, I`m digging it, it`s not wet" BM
"I found big treasure from the dry mud!" OS
"I`m helping, I`m scooping out the dry mud and putting it in my bowl" EL
They used sticks and hands to make marks and patterns....
"I`m scraping my fingers in the sand. It`s dry and tough" TM
They collected the scrapings and lumps in various pots and pans in the mud kitchen, even more excited by the variety of textures available, and they investigated creating different consistencies by spontaneously adding water in varying amounts.......
"I`m making cakes with it, chocolate cakes. It`s dry, like sand" TM
"I`m doing cupcakes. I got water mud" FM
"I`m putting it in the frying pan for cooking" OS
"I got the dry mud in my bowl, it`s little tiny bits" JC
It suddenly started to rain gently, and the raindrops created dark spots on the dry soil.
"It`s all spotty on the mud!" IL
"Look at all them spots!" EB
Some of the children carried water to the mud area and poured it on the ground, immediately jumping in the instant puddle they had created. They were amazed how quickly it disappeared! They spontaneously engaged in teamwork to carry larger amounts of water over from the water centre in jugs, bowls, buckets etc and investigated the changes they were making, using spoons or wellies to blend and mix...
"When it`s wet it`s sticky!" HG
"It`s all soggy" EL
"It`s turning all muddy again because it`s raining!" BM
"I got water in my water can, Emily made a hole for me and I put it all back flat" JC
The children loved having the control to be able to change the mud themselves and make it however they wanted it to be .....
"I`m mixing up the yacky water!" LM
"I think it`s water mud" JC
"I`m putting lots of mud in it and lots of water in it and it`s changed `cos I`m mixing it all up with the spoon" MM
"I`m putting my hands in the mud and I made cupcakes" LM
Just another wonderful day in the life of our mud centre - experimenting and investigating, discovering and learning, sharing and imagining, fun and friendship.
Challenge: Experiment with mud at home, in the garden, in the woods etc. See if you can make three different kinds of mud with varying consistencies - eg watery, runny, sloppy, gooey, sticky, squidgy, stodgy, solid etc. You could have fun inventing your own words to describe it. Use your imagination, what can you pretend?
