Mud, glorious mud!
Making a super simple mud kitchen for Possum (aged 2.5 years) and her older cousins has been my dream for quite awhile. My hesitation has never been whether they would enjoy the tactile and messy experience or not, but I wasn’t sure how to set it up so it was simple, temporary and clean up wasn’t going to make me regret what I’d started, especially when it came to cleaning the clothes.
It just so happened that I was recently asked to try Radiant’s new range of laundry products with Colour Guard Technology. It claimed to clean even the toughest of stains and keep clothes looking newer for longer. I’d seen some of the absolutely hilarious videos from their ‘Radiant Return’ campaign on television where they torture tested some store bought clothes and successfully returned them for a refund. It gave me confidence that it was a great laundry product that would clean the mud from the kids muddy clothes.
How to make a simple DIY mud kitchen
Collect various household items
I found some old bits and pieces at the back of the cupboard that I felt confident the kids would love to use for their mud kitchen. Suggested items –
- Cooking trays
- Large spoons
- Plastic sieve
- Pattypan tray
- Measuring cups and
- Containers
I particularly liked using the above household items, as I knew they would have the children learning through their play experience. Measuring, scooping, pouring and estimating the mud would all become part of the of fun. The items used would also be very easy to clean afterwards!
Building your mud kitchen
We decided to build our mud kitchen on an area that had dirt already exposed. This would make the mud-making process much easier and require virtually no digging. Additionally, I wanted the structure of the mud kitchen to be safe, simple and easy to set up. It also needed to be temporary and easy to take down! We used –
- Empty buckets
- Plywood
There are many fancy mud kitchens bouncing around the Internet, but all our kitchen required were some large empty buckets and a piece of plywood, which acted as the kitchen bench top. It was beyond simple! And because we had more than one child using this mud kitchen, a simple bench seat did the trick to extend the mud kitchen area.
Preparing the surface (aka mud)!
Just add water!!
It wasn’t long before the dirt and water came together and created a wonderfully muddy mess that the kids were absolutely itching to get into. I quickly added the kitchen items they could use in their play experience and left them to it. It really required no instructions, just to have fun!
Pretend play
This mud kitchen really brought the children together and engaged them on a level playing field. It wasn’t long before they were all role-playing and taking it in turns to be a shop keeper or purchaser of special mud cakes and pies. There was lots of talking about measuring, counting and the money required to purchase each of the “delicious” muddy treats.
Of course it wasn’t long before the older children were really getting into the fun of playing with mud. It was really quite hilarious, until I remembered I would be the one washing their clothes! I had to quickly remind myself of this ‘Radiant Return’ campaign video and hope we would be able to clean the muddy clothes as they had.
Let them be kids!
Messy play, especially with mud, can be so hard to embrace. Your mind can start to worry about how the clothes will turn out and what extra clean up will be required once the fun is over. I do believe it’s important to really try and embrace a child’s experience of messy play and allow them the freedom to create some really great memories, which are likely to last a lifetime.
Cleaning up after a mud kitchen
Despite what you might think, the clean up was really very simple as we had used very few materials to actually build the mud kitchen structure in the first place. It was just a case of hosing down the from the ‘table top’ and washing the household items used for making the mud pies in hot soapy water.
A deep bucket of water was useful for washing the mud off skin, before the kids were thrown into a nice warm shower.
Cleaning muddy clothing
As you can imagine, I was a quite nervous about cleaning these mud stained clothes worn by the kids at the mud kitchen. Even once the caked on mud was hosed off, I could see I was about to face a massive laundry challenge. In fact my sister even suggested I cut my losses and use them as rags. They really did seem beyond any kind of repair.
As planned, I decided to try the new Radiant Laundry products and see how it would cope with the exceptionally dirty clothing. Their recent ‘Radiant Returns’ torture tests gave me some confidence, but I really needed to try it out for myself and on the clothing worn by the children. Could this laundry product handle the dirty clothing of kids? What about kids who have been literally rolling in mud?
Washed clean and like brand new!
This photograph was taken 4 days after the mud kitchen took place and at a separate family gathering. The results clearly speak for themselves. The Radiant laundry products, which I used on the muddy clothes, were completely cleaned and looking like new. Just take a look at that white t-shirt!!!! I honestly didn’t think it would even have been the same.
Radiant sure did prove to me that their unique Colour Guard Technology can lift difficult stains while protecting clothes and keeping them looking newer for longer.
No excuses
Many would choose to avoid the mess created from a mud kitchen. The fact is, it’s possible to achieve a wonderful play experience for children, which is simple and easy to clean up, especially if you’re using the right materials and Radiant laundry products.
Aside from the incredible learning experience achieved from the children’s involvement in a mud kitchen, I know that we have created long lasting memories that will not easily be forgotten. So have confidence to get your kids messy.
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Baking
Oh what glorious messy fun! Great pics 🙂
Oh I love this! Looks like so much fun. My son’s favourite way to get messy is with paint. He seems to think painting himself is MUCH more exciting than painting on boring old paper. haha!
Messy play is always the beat!!
oops meant to say best!
Oh those photos are fabulous! Look at all that muddy fun!!!
We really need to have a go at this… but we might wait till they forecast something other than snow for our house! LOL
We LOVE this! We want to have a mud kitchen in our courtyard but don’t think the real estate would be too happy about it..!
Just with the cleaning though, it’s WAY better to use natural cleaning product or DIY stuff. Getting outside and in the mud is awesome for the immune system and overall health and happiness, but then using chemicals to clean with really defeats a lot of that whole purpose and can decrease health very easily.
Mud kitchen yes, then clean the body and clothes naturally! Then it’s a major win win!! 🙂
Thanks so very much for your comment Aimee and Clint. Is there a natural cleaning product that you could recommend?
Messy play is fantastic.
My sons favourite way to get messy is helping in the garden with the hose. It always results in mud and muddy water all over him. He finds this especially fun when there are slugs and beetles to inspect too.
Loved the mud play kitchen and how the detergent worked on that white tee in particular. I hate trying messy play to avoid dealing with the dirty clothes. My two year olds fav way to get messy is making mudcakes at the beach. It’s a pretend birthday party every time we visit the beach.
The messiest we get is probably painting! With a 2.5 year old and a 1.5 year old, we dont always get it on the paper or item we are painting, and often get it on each other!!
I struggle with the idea of having to clean up something like this, and I obviously already do LOTS of washing! This Radiant package looks sensational, I seriously can not believe how ‘brand new’ those clothes looked after the messy muddy kitchen! We may just have to try this! Well done! 🙂
Love radiant use it on my husbands footy gear, my 2.5 year old sons fav way to get messy is muddy puddles!!! Remember the fun of jumping in a big puddle? You should try it, my sister-in-law recently spent half my husbands football game running through a massive puddle with my son priceless memories (especially with radiant to clean up)
Our messiest play is gardening, closely followed by painting. At least with the gardening I only have to deal with the clothes!!
That is a tough call between muddy puddles and using the garden hose…on me!!
Helping Daddy in the shed, they are always fixing something that is covered in grease.
It looks like they had lots of fun! My two love mess!
We would use the front loader Radiant 🙂
Definitely eating spaghetti bolognese! I try to avoid it but if I had a years supply of Radiant – spaghetti bolognese would be back on the menu.
For my daughter it’s usually texta or paint mess as she loves to create and will get totally absorbed – forgetting about her sleeve dragging through the paint tray.
My son loves diving and catching the soccer ball on the muddy grass and also loves to ride through puddles – ensuring a nice line of mud up his back
My son loves to draw and paint on himself. He helped paint my belly before my daughter was born but I think he ended up a lot more colourful than me!
Looks like fun! DW’s favorite way to get messy is with MY art supplies. If the house is quiet I know I will probably find him hiding in a corner with my ink pads covering himself with fingerprint ‘leopard’ spots!
Such great pics! Looks like awesome fun and so impressed by the after photo! wow! My kids do all sorts of messy but mud and paint are definitely the hardest to wash out especially when activities like feet painting turn into full body painting as has happened at my house :/
Muddy fun here! Boys love to play in the dirt so I always appreciate good laundry detergent!
My daughter likes to get her hands into anything she can get! glue, paint, mud, sand….anything
LOVE the mud kitchen! Awesome. And what a great result after washing. My kids favourite way to get dirty is probably slip and slide. But OH those grass stains!
My girls go crazy in our sand pit. They love adding buckets of water to mix up ingredients but ultimately their favorite thing is to fill up the fronts of their (folded over) shirts with dirty, wet sand and play mums and babies. So messy but so cute!
I think my daughter’s favourite way would have to be whilst she digs for worms in our garden…she then keeps them in her HAT!!
All that mud! I can just imagine how much fun they had! And I was thinking the same thing; there’s now way that white shirt is coming clean again! But it did!!
My kids’ favourite way to get messy? It has to be dirt. They seem to be drawn to it. Luckily our entire yard is a giant dirt pit at the moment! And with all the rain we’ve had it’s now all gloriously muddy too! Dirt, puddles and mud… what could be better? … besides an awesome washing detergent that gets everything clean again! 😉
my kids love getting out on the farm they go out and play outside all day they come back dirty but who cares when u use radiant leaves the clothes looking brand new love the product
In the mud making mud cakes!!
That looks like so much fun! Takes me back to when I was that age…
My kids love puddles and jumping in them to spray whatever is in there, usually water and dirt, splash all over them.
Kids love getting outside after it has rained, hmm messy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As our back yard has no lawn at the moment, the kids get muddy just going out side. But they love to make mud pies & biscuites and then sell them in their pretend shop.
My kids love getting messy with paint 🙂
The best way to get dirty is jumping in puddles then cuddling the dog who has joined you,
Yep good old fashion clean fun ha ha my kids lov veggies g dirty and who cares they had lads of fun 🙂
Woops auto correct grrrrr my kids loved getting dirty
I have a son so he gets messy no matter what he’s doing! Lol he probably gets his most messiest helping in the garden.
Grubby
And
Really
Dirty
Every
Night
Is
Nice
Going!
Mud mud glorious mud it is made into cakes, into car tracks, into mountain ranges, removed for caves, even added for flavour into the poor dogs water. The many ways my children have found to use mud and the many ways i have tried to remove it. lol Oh please please help me with radiant let me children look like children again in clean clothes and with smiles.
My children love getting messy digging in the vegie garden and playing with their dog.
My seven month olds favourite messy activity is to squish,squash & squeeze his food through his fingers and all over his clothes!
As an early childhood educator for the last 10+ years I strongly encourage and promote messy play through different mediums for children to have fun, explore and develop their senses!!
My son loves to jump in muddy puddles and I can’t tell him off because he says “peppa pig can do it and she says I can to” all I can do I smile and say yes darling lol
My 2 year old loves ‘helping’ with the baking & cleaning up the mess. This is followed by very messy & now wet clothes from the mixture & dishes.
My 18 month old granddaughter loves to play dig dig in my pot plants then sweeping up after dig dig .
The best way of getting muddy in our house is using the hose to make a skate run and running and surfing to see how far you get before you fall and then the 1.5 has a turn and just rolls her way down with a massive smile
Well worth the extra loads of washing
My daughter gets messy looking after her duck and chichens
I’m team manager for footy and the boys get dirty play footy love a year worth of radiant
down the shed with there dad always coming up to show me the oil , grease and what ever else they are doing down there on there clothes . gont know how many clothes I have throwen out because I cant get them clean no matter how many times I soak/wash them . help
I find working outside in the garden weeding mowing and cleaning up branches and planting pots up I get quite grotty
Having 2 boys 8 & 6 they just love getting messy and their favourite way to do that is by placing a big pile of sand under the carport,wait till it rains or get the hose and then get out their drift trikes and ride through the sand/water/mud and skid flicking all the mud onto each other, what a mess but they have SOOO much fun. Boys will be boys.
My kids love to get messy anyway they can, everything from finger painting to mud brick baking. I try to console myself they are artists in the making!
I used to use cheap crap but have been buying the big tubs of Radiant from Big W and it lasts so long and I love how all our clothes smell so lovely,even the linen now and wouldn’t swap……Love RADIANT!!
My kids when they were little used to fill their undies with mud!!!
Oh I just loved looking though these pics Kate!! What glorious muddy fun and wonderful that Radiant got it all out as this sort of play is so very important and if parents don’t need to worry about the mess their kids are making of their clothes then more might let them just be kids and have fun! My twins absolutely love getting messy with wet sand cooking in our bushrock sandpit, throw in some watercolours in spray bottles and they are in messy, sensory heaven!
I totally agree-let the kids get muddy! They’ll be growing out of their clothes soon enough. In our mud kitchen we did add a nearby hose with a sprayer attachment for rapid clean up. My favorite moment was when the children each got into a full bucket of mud, sat on the rim, and started to “wash” their hands in the mud… such a quintessential childhood moment! Great post!
Thanks Jason. My niece and nephews STILL talk about us making this mud kitchen and are super keen to make another. It was so fun for everyone and something they’ll never forget. Love your tip about the hose. Thanks for commenting. 🙂
Yesterday I set up misses 2 and 5 with some little squares of colourful japanese paper, card and a purple glue stick, then made the mistake of thinking I could escape for a shower. On my return miss 2 had coated her card, hands, arms, face and the table with a thick gooey layer of purple glue! Yuk! She only glued three tiny squares onto the card because she had discovered the sensory experience of spreading around her favourite coloured glue! She is a mess creation project and no mistake 🙂
Wow! what a fun. kids love to enjoy this mud kitchen play ideas.
That look so fun how long did they play for?
OH my gosh Aaron, for aaaaages. They loved it. 🙂
No thank you.