Mud Mapping
Find all the muddy places nearby. Look for hidden nooks and crannies between rocks. Check near puddles. Test each mud patch and rate in terms of squelch, ooze and stickiness. Mark each spot on a map with a splodge of mud!
Dinosaur Swamp
If you have a pocketful of dinosaurs then let them hang out in the mud for a while. Like hippos, they enjoy wallowing in mud. Put little twigs, ferns and big leaves sticking upright. This creates a miniature “Jurassic Park.”
Alternatively, take your favourite plastic animals to a watering hole and let them wallow in the nearby mud. Wash well afterwards. Create a mini mud world for them to live in.
Missing Mud
How can you make a patch of mud go away?
Mud Between the Toes
On hot days it can be very cooling to let your feet have a mud bath. Watch them dry and crack in the sun before washing off in a stream or under water. Make muddy footprints.
Find a patch of mud to walk through in your bare feet. How can you make the mud ooze between your toes?
Mud Pie Masterchef
Some make pies. Others make soup. Lots like stew. Whatever you like to eat, it can be made in a mud kitchen. Hot chocolate anyone?
Making Mud
What is the perfect recipe for a batch of mud? One dollop of clay? Add in a scoop of soil, mix well with dripped in water? You decide. Hold a mud making competition.
Drippy Castles
Scoop up a handful of wet, dripping mud. Turn your hand upside down. Let the mud drip through your fingers and thumb to the ground. Soon little mound will form which will grow in size as you add more drippy mud. Real mud experts will be able to create little mud spires and peaks. Make a line or circle of drippy castles.
Flat as a Pancake
Make your mud patch as smooth as a skating rink. Then decide how you are going to mess it up…
Smell Mud
What does mud smell like? Is it possible to change the smell of a batch of mud and how could you do this?
The Stuck in the Mud Stomp
Take your favourite mud song and have a muddy, stompy sing-a-long! Act out the different animals and how they would squelch and squerch in the mud. The title link leads you to this muddy song on YouTube.
This blog post was first published in June 2013.
Loads of great ideas! We love mud. I’ve put a link to your post at the bottom of mine about mud, hope that’s ok.
So fantastic! Thank you for sharing you ideas. I am going to be running a children’s holiday programme through Elemental Kids in Cape Town at the end of the month where children will be creating their own mud festival! These ideas are going to be very helpful 🙂
fantastic ideas i had no idea we had an international mud day , i will be having great fun promoting this ensuring all my nursery , preschool and reception children fully participate.
Hi Anita – It’s a celebration which has grown year on year but I believe was begun by the Nature Action Collaborative.