A Muddy Day Outside

Yesterday, Engineer and I had a
mud snow day.  All of the schools were closed because of sleet, slush, and snow.  Snoopy and Little Hurricane came over for part of the day, and we were looking forward to playing out in the little bit of snow on the ground.  

Of course, by mid-morning, the snow was already starting to melt!  The boys were rather disappointed at first, until they discovered the melting snow was leaving mud in its wake!  Then they were all about staying outside to play.

Snoopy used a Thomas the Train bath toy in the water and mud, while Engineer had a red toy tractor.  The older boys used the train and tractor to move mud and grass.  They also had fun making up stories involving mudslides, overflowing dams, and rivers gone wild.

Little Hurricane spent most of his time jumping and splashing in every available puddle!  When he wasn’t doing that, he was looking at the water drain pipes.  His puddle-jumping drove the older boys crazy, but everyone was happy once he’d found a puddle in a different spot.

All of the boys were rather fascinated by the drain pipes and how they transport water.  Snoopy enjoyed using the draining water to clean off Thomas after playing in the mud and grass.  Little Hurricane just liked putting his hand into the flowing water (at least until his hands got too cold).  Engineer was focused on planning how to fix a leak higher up in the drain pipe!

Yes, this was pretty messy play, but it was FUN.  If it hadn’t been for the cold winds and the boys’ need for food, we would have stayed outside the entire day!  This play helped the boys explore a variety of concepts through play:

• States of matter (specifically solids and liquids)
• Water’s phase changes (as ice warms, it changes to water)
• Water flows in a downward direction
• Water mixed with dirt creates mud
• Ground soil absorbs water

How do your kiddos play with mud?

This post was originally published on Fun-A-Day!

Sensory Play with "Magic Muck"

You ever have one of those days when the kids are just bouncing off the walls but it’s too cold to go outside and you’re too broke to go anywhere else? Yeah, that was us one day last week. Plus, Piglet was nursing constantly and I was just exhausted and desperate for something for the kids to do. As a last resort, I went rummaging through our homeschool closet for a quick activity that wouldn’t be too messy or expensive.

Then I remembered this book.

I got this over a year ago, but I think we’d only made one thing from it before last week. (I’m really awful about that.) Anyway, I looked through it and ah-ha! Magic Muck sounded like a perfect time-filler, especially since our kids are extreme sensory seekers.

What is Magic Muck, you ask? It also goes by the name “Oobleck“, so you’ve probably heard of it before. It’s just cornstarch, water, and a bit of food coloring. But, the neat thing about it is that the mixture behaves differently, depending on how much pressure you apply. When you initially touch it in the bowl, it feels firm, but when you pick it up and squeeze it, it runs through your fingers like a liquid. Very cool.

We laid down some packing paper and stood at the table to feel it. Instead of giving each child his or her own bowl of it, I did a communal bowl to encourage everyone to stand still. I’m sure that if all the kids had a bowl, I would still be cleaning Muck off the walls a week later.

See how the texture looks firm in the bowl, but runny off of Tigger’s hand?

The funny thing about sensory play is that you never know how the kids will respond. Tigger and Pooh loved it. In fact, they’ve been asking to do it again every day since. Roo? Not so much. I brought him a bowl of water to rinse his hands in and he asked if he could just put his hands in that for play instead. Which he did happily for over 20 minutes.

To each his own…

Have you used sensory play with your kids? We’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments. Keep on learning!

This post was originally published on Look! We're Learning!