We love a good mud kitchen play, my little girl Ava, spends hours and I mean hours at our mud kitchen. It can be a lifesaver in the spring or summer and is one of the rare occasions my two actually play together, nicely. So what is a mud kitchen?
A mud kitchen is simply, an outdoor table with cups, bowls, jugs and anything else you can find that you no longer want in your own kitchen! Despite the name it doesn’t actually mean every time it’s used, mud has to be involved. In fact, more often than not mud isn’t used! It’s a great space for water play, messy play (if you’re brave enough) and even sensory dough!
So if you’re keen and raring to go, you may have even ordered your brand new mud kitchen but are wondering what to stock it with, I have a handy list of essential mud kitchen items that are easy to get hold of and allow your little ones to get creative at the mud kitchen.
Essential items for your mud kitchen:
2 Jugs
2 Bowls
Wooden spoons or Spatulas
Ladle / Scoops
Containers to store natural treasures (old takeaway boxes work great!)
Optional extras could include:
Pinecones
Sticks
Acorns
Flowers
Leaves
Rocks
Seeds
Cinnamon
Star anise
This is by no means a comprehensive list it’s a starting point and the beauty of a mud kitchen is how it changes through the seasons and with your child’s interests.
Over the last few years I have a few favourite mud kitchen plays, super easy to do and set up, because let’s be real, who has hours to set up a beautiful play space every day! These can be replicated and reused as often as you like!
Fairy Soup
A super simple set up, my little ones love water play especially in the warmer months. One way I add a little bit of curiosity and excitement to our water set ups is by creating different shades of colours. We use milk to give a pastel type colour.
Tropical Tea
We often collect a few treasures on our nature walks in the Spring. The orange flowers were a great contrast to the green pastel water, they were fished out, squished and mixed for quite a while too.
Carrot Cakes
Sensory dough can be used at the mud kitchen too! Using our Moorland Mud dough as the cupcake base and our gorgeous Autumn Leaf orange as carrots, this one is really easy but kept my two occupied for ages, perfect for an Easter Mud Kitchen play too!
Unicorn Heart Cake
Everyone loves a magical unicorn play set up don’t they! This one has everything, gemstones, dried flowers and calming dusted lavender dough, We used our heart sensory puzzle for this one, a sensory puzzle is a shape cut out using cardboard, that can then be filled with either dough or other sensory bases like sensory rice or chickpeas. It’s great fun and doesn’t need to be intricate, if like me you’re rubbish at art you can still make it look pretty good!
A mud kitchen is a versatile, open ended play space that allows your little ones to get creative and have fun! What’s not to like!?
