An A to Z of enhancements M is for Mud

Continuous provision in our mud area consists of a mud kitchen, various authentic metal utensils, pots and pans, containers including potion bottles, china tableware, an old microwave and a wooden picnic table. Next to our mud kitchen are tyres with herbs growing in. The children know that in this area they are allowed to carefully pick or pull off parts of the plants and flowers and use them in their play. They often can be observed adding them to their mud potions or pretend food and drink they are creating.

Next to the mud area is water equipment, including funnels, containers, guttering with stands, and watering cans. Allowing children to add water to mud creates new sensory experiences. They can experiment with what happens when different amounts of water are used. As well as allowing for exploration of volume and measure, this can enable opportunities to develop in communication and language as they talk to each other about the changing consistency of the mud.

We often have containers left out in the rain and small water butts to collect the rainwater for children to use in their mud play. We also have an outdoor tap with a hose which is a useful water source to top up if the collected rainwater runs out. When water and mud are combined for play, we have waterproof jackets and trousers.

DINOSAUR TERRAIN

Last term, children were interested in taking the dinosaur toys from the small-world area and putting them in the dry mud. While reading the book Mad About Dinosaurs by Giles Andreae, we talked about the word ‘swamp’ and what it meant. The next day we decided to create our own dinosaur swamp enhancement outside. This included a box of plastic dinosaur toys, sticks and stones, water sources in the form of a water butt and containers of rainwater, plus some guttering and tuff trays for experimenting with the water and mud. There was also a tuff tray of cornflour gloop to add to the sensory experience.

We loosened a large circular area of the mud using a trowel so the children could see the potential to have their swamp there. When children went outside and saw the enhancement, they put on their waterproof coats, trousers and wellies. They set to work straight away transferring the water intothe mud. Among the laughter and giggling, lots of comments could be heard, such as ‘we are making a watery swamp for the dinosaurs!’ and ‘we need more water to make it more sloppy!’.

They made comments linked to the book, such as ‘I think the T-Rex has broken his teeth!’ and ‘shall we hide the baby dinosaur to find?’. They were focused on working together to bring water from the different water sources and to find out what happened when they mixed increasing amounts of water with the mud.

MUDDY TALES

Another enhancement was linked to the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs. This time we prepared a big tub of mud that we had mixed up with a little water to make a thick, cement-like consistency. Some characters from the story were placed in a tuff tray along with straw and sticks. We also added a few real bricks for the children to use their senses to explore and potentially make links to the story (the tuff tray was closely supervised to ensure that the bricks were used safely.)

The children were very excited to see the enhancement outside. ‘The straw doesn’t make a good house, let’s use the bricks,’ a child commented. They described the bricks as being heavy, strong and hard, but said the straw was bendy and soft. Through this enhancement the children demonstrated that they were discussing the differences between materials, which is part of their ‘Understanding the World’ development.

They brought over some bowls from the mud kitchen and spread out the thick mud. We had pointed out to the children that morning, while reading the book, that the pig was using a trowel to spread the cement between the bricks, and that is what builders do. They pretended to be builders using their ‘cement’ with the bricks and talked about how it takes a long time to build a house this way, but it makes it strong so that the wolf can’t blow it down.

Amy Jackson is EYFS specialist leader of education and teacher at Ormiston Herman Academy, Gorleston