Wet and Wonderful – a Mud Puddle-and-Pie Activity Guide

The season of wet-and-muddy is upon us, and with it, an opportunity to embrace all manners of sensory play, mud-puddle math, nature art and interdisciplinary integration!  Have boots? Will play!

Mud-puddle math:

Mud puddles provide endless hours of sensory fun, and an incredible opportunity for authentic learning!

How deep is the water? How much water is in a really big puddle?  What could it fill? A bucket?  A bathtub? How could we even measure it?!

In her blog Puddle Play – Rethinking the ‘Math Classroom’, Deanna Pecaski McLennan, PhD, elaborates the “measurement, counting, capacity, classification, time and quantity” that can all be explored authentically  in a puddle. This is rich learning where play and adaptive reasoning intersect.

Math can happen anywhere, and outdoors doing something most children love is the perfect place!

Tool tips? Try:

• Turkey basters  That turkey baster that only gets used twice yearly?! An incredible (and FUN) instrument of transfer and measurement:  squirting distance, volume transfer – comparing between one container and another.
• Measuring cups
• Funnels

More math and measurement?! Try Mud Kitchens!

Mud Kitchen:

Cooking up delicious “recipes” in a mud kitchen requires only a few second-hand kitchen implements like muffin tins, metal bowls, collanders and spoons.  This can be on-the-ground immersive play or hands-in-a-sandbox in a wood or brick enclosure (pictured below).  Second-hand stores are inexpensive sources for utensils, and places like the Re-store offer inexpensive sinks and accessories for more elaborate builds!