So what are the benefits of a mud kitchen? Mud Kitchens are more than just the chance to explore mud, get messy and have fun. They also provide a whole variety of different outdoor learning opportunities including sensory, imaginative, creative, mathematical, scientific and exploratory play.

Children can spend hours outdoors in a mud kitchen in immersive messy play. Allow children to get creative and to use their imaginations. A mud kitchen could even become a café. Encourage children to self select and collect their own items to use in their kitchens, providing sensory items such as real herbs, fruits and vegetables – creating meaningful sensory play experiences.

Create memories and experiences for children. Our own memories of our childhood often include memories of being outdoors with our friends, building dens, making potions, playing hide and seek – with so much time now being spent on screens, now is the time to get children outdoors and chances are they will learn whilst they play.

Add Painted stones – with numbers and letters

Add log stumps as little stools or steps. These rustic wooden chairs and table are just gorgeous as an alternative too.

  • Add mud, bark, sand, shells, twigs, and pebbles in jars to self select
  • Add potion bottles and mud kitchen containers

Spice and herb jars - Useful for small loose parts play, mud pie kitchens, malleable play, sorting, counting and lots more.

Add old metal pots and pans, cup cake tins, bun cases to make herb soups, mud pies, mud buns and magical potions and concoctions

  • Scour charity shops and add old metal tea pots
  • Scales and measuring jugs – basic maths
  • Create science experiments using potion bottles and containers by adding alka seltza tablets to fizzy liquid or to oil and water – what happens?
  • Add a water pump or a lidded water butt with a tap to access water themselves
  • Have a water butt to collect rain water
  • The little plastic shot cups that you can buy from supermarkets are a nice addition and are often rainbow coloured to add some colour
  • Old jam and pasta jars to store natural items such as conkers, pinecones, bark, shells in and to make potions in too.
  • Dried orange, lemon and lime slices in jars – dry them on a low heat in the oven in slices.
  • Old tyres – you could stack tyres and fill with soil
  • Add a music wall with boom whackers and metal items

Brushes and log/wood slices to be creative on

Cable reels and wooden apple crates or plastic milk crates make great additions

  • Create shade by adding a canopy using camouflage netting
  • Old Pallets make great water walls with channelling, tubes and funnels attached. You can also hang plant pots from pallets that are on their side fixed to a fence
  • Have a lidded dustbin to store mud in

Mud kitchens don’t have to be expensive. You can make your own with a few basic materials – 2 wooden apple crates with a plank of wood across the top. Two wood stumps with a plank of wood across to make a counter. Two old wooden pallets make a lovely mud kitchen.

Add a rustic oven or campfire / cauldron for added role play.

A wheelchair accessible mud kitchen means that everyone can get access to this popular outdoor play resource.

Find out how to make a simple mud kitchen of your own using old wooden pallets in our blog post here: https://www.cosydirect.com/blog/post/how-to-make-your-own-basic-mud-kitchen