Mud Kitchens are great for developing the following skills! All you need is a patch of mus and some kitchen utensils!
- Development of Pretence – Children developing the capacity to use their imagination to feed their play.
- Development and use of receptive and expressive language – Children’s ability to listen to and understand what is being said to them and also their ability to communicate their ideas and thoughts is a way that others can understand.
- Mental representations – ideas that children create in their mind and then play out through role play and interaction
- Transform objects – Children use their imagination to turn one object into another. The more ambiguous the object, the easier the process. So a box can be a boat, a house, a microwave a shoe etc
- Symbolic action – children imagine how something might ‘be’ or ‘feel’ and then use this as a mechanism for their play.
- Interactive dialogue – Children talk to others who respond appropriately
- Negotiation – Using language and conversation skills to reach a compromise or end result.
- Role taking through choice – Children coorperate in play but decide on the role within that play that they would like to take. Often done without talk
- Role taking under direction (cooperation) – Children cooperate in play but are happy to be directed by another child or adult who is leading the scenario
- Improvisation – Children have no set or fixed plan for how their play will develop. The scenario emerges as a result of the children’s interactions.
The children are going to be exploring and consolidating a range of skills like:
- Filling
- Pouring
- Emptying
- Transferring
- Sorting
- Whisking
- Mixing
- Splatting
- Counting
- Handling
- Mashing
- Sharing
- Scooping
- Gathering
- Estimating
- Decanting
- Adding
- Stirring
- Sieving
- Foraging
- Serving
- Ladling
- Squashing
- Grinding
- Molding
- Smoothing
- Splashing
- Picking
- Selecting
- Collecting
- Crushing
- Squashing
- Measuring
- Brewing
- Separating