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