A mud kitchen is a great way to offer your children a semi-contained free-play space without much facilitating from you. Once you put in the work for the initial set-up, your mud kitchen will hopefully be a place where you can sit back and enjoy watching your children play. The first step to creating your own mud kitchen is figuring out the best space for it somewhere in your yard (if you don’t have a yard, I’ve written some alternative suggestions below). It’s helpful if the spot you choose is reachable with a hose, so you can replenish water easily. You could also set up your space with a rain barrel with a spigot, so your child can get water for themselves. This takes the hose out of it (unfettered access to the hose can sometimes complicate things, as you might imagine).
Things you could use to make your mud kitchen:
Pallets
A small, kid-size table or small picnic table
A rain barrel with spigot
An old metal or ceramic sink (watch out for sharp edges, and make sure it’s safe and stable)
Old kitchen implements like :
*sieves
*muffin tins
*wooden and metal spoons, spatulas
*cookie sheets
*plastic or metal tubs for holding water
*cups or plates
*any other non-sharp things that could be fun for scooping and pouring and mud-baking (I like to buy these kind of supplies from thrift stores). You could also ask friends or family if they’re getting rid of old kitchen stuff.
THINGS TO CONSIDER
-Test for lead (sometimes old metal utensils or containers from a thrift store have lead. There are simple lead testing kits you can get at a drugstore to test your metal mud kitchen objects quickly before using).
-Avoid sharp objects
-If you have a permanent space for a mud kitchen, it’s possible that traffic and water combo will pull up grass and make a hollowed out mud-pit… this is the idea, but it’s not great if you don’t want a mud pit on your lawn.
If you don’t want to have a grassless spot on your yard, or you don’t have a yard, alternatives would be to just bring out tubs of water on a deck or gravel spot like a driveway (just be prepared for your child to scoop up the gravel to use for their projects). You could also keep the activity water and mud free by supplying your child with things like grass clippings, leaves, branches, tree rounds, or small stones. These are all great to have in your mud kitchen anyway.
You want to set up the space like a real kitchen- somewhat contained, with workspaces that feel intuitively placed (I.e. the little table could be in the center, kind of like a kitchen island).
For the mud kitchen at our school, we screwed the pallets together to hold the sink at waist level, so kids as young as two would be able to use it. In the mornings when I got to work, I would usually fill up the water bins and set up the mud kitchen area in a way that was inviting, but you might not have time for that. It’s certainly not necessary to set the objects up in any way—most kids will still be drawn to the space. If you’re looking for some kind of way to organize the kitchen implements, I might suggest an old, low, set of shelves/bookcase or a bench (one that’s low and stable and won’t fall on anyone, or won’t hurt anyone if it does fall) for your children to store the kitchen utensils.
There’s really no wrong way to make a mud kitchen- the idea is to have a contained outdoor area with loose parts for open-ended play, that doesn’t need to be facilitated by you. Good luck!