You may recall that last year,  after seeing all of the gorgeous mud-kitchens out there in the blogosphere, I used our wheel-barrow to create a portable mud-patch last year for the Hooligans (you can see the original post here).

Well, re-creating that mud-patch has been on my mind for days, and yesterday when my feet hit the floor at 6 a.m., and the air in the house was already thick and muggy, I knew the day to do it had arrived.

When the Hooligans arrived, I hauled out the old wheelbarrow and dumped a generous amount of clean potting soil into it.  Then I called to the Hooligans bring some sand from the sand-box.  They’d been watching me, and were oh-so-curious about what I was doing, so they were only to happy to jump into action. They ran back and forth from the wheel barrow to the sandbox delivering and dumping small pailfuls of sand until we figured we had enough.  Then they stirred it all up with their shovels while I was setting up their water supply.

A water jug with a spigot is without question one of the best things we’ve ever added to our outdoor play-space.  I often see them at our local thrift shop.  We don’t have it ours often (although I suppose we should in this weather), but it comes out on days like these, and the Hooligans LOVE it.  The spigot is a bit stiff and provides a challenge for little hands to manage, (think muscle development and motor control) and they love having complete control over their own tap and water source!

After adding enough water to make a great, sloppy mess, they brought cars, trucks and tractors from the sand box to add to the mud-pit, and  I set up a “baking counter” by placing a long board and some baking utensils and “ingredients” at one end of the wheelbarrow.

What great, messy fun!   At the end of the day, the mud-patch gets wheeled away to the shed, and we can pull it out another day.  

Now what to do with those muddy kids?  Click here to see how they cleaned up.