Mud pie anyone?! Kids love playing in the mud and getting messy, so what could be better than serving up mud cakes in an outdoor mud kitchen. This mud kitchen activity is so easy to set up and can be played with all year round. Old tables, pieces of wood, bricks, milk crates or food crates can all be used to make a really simple mud kitchen. It doesn't need to look perfect, this activity is about giving kids an opportunity to get muddy and use their imagination in their own area of the garden!
I have been meaning to make Harry an outdoor mud kitchen for ages and I'm so glad that we finally have as he LOVES it! I can't believe it has taken so long as it was so easy to make.
Outdoor Mud Kitchen DIY
Mud Kitchen DIY supplies:
- Old tables, pieces of wood, bricks, milk crates or food crates to create the kitchen (Use your imagination: put a plank of wood over a couple of stacks of bricks, use an old table, or stack milk crates on top of each other. As long as there is a surface at your child's height it can be used as a mud kitchen!)
- Old (or cheap) frying pans and saucepans
- A washing up bowl or bucket to hold water
- A selection of spoons, a whisk (and anything else that could be used for mixing up a muddy treat)
- A sink tidy to keep everything together
- Cupcake trays and cases for serving up mud cakes
- A colander is a good addition too
- MUD! (You could dig out a muddy area in your garden but we went for the easy option of buying a bag of soil from a garden centre)
- Flowers are great too (rather than throw dying flowers away add them to the kitchen)
How to make a simple outdoor mud kitchen
It really couldn't be any easier. To make our mud kitchen we used 5 food crates. We stacked 2 crates on top of each other to create a sink area. We filled the crate with a washing-up bowl, sink tidy and lots of kitchen utensils. Then we turned the other 3 crates upside down and stacked them on top of each other to make a cooker.
Harry would have been quite happy if we had left it at that, but we had some blackboard paint (affiliate links: UK /US) left after making a chalkboard table, so we decided to use it to paint an old piece of wood. Once it had dried I added the words 'Harry's Mud Kitchen'. Hopefully over time Harry will use the chalkboard for his own mark making.
Once the kitchen had been made all that was needed was the mud! We opened a bag of soil and left it next to the kitchen. We filled the washing-up bowl with water so we could mix up some squelchy mud and we were ready to get cooking.
Harry couldn't wait to get stuck in and start cooking dinner!
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He loved mixing the mud, water and flowers together in the saucepans and he made some nice gooey cakes!
Daddy thought it tasted delicious!
To add an extra element to this mud kitchen play you could make a mud kitchen menu and recipes. We have printable mud kitchen recipes cards available in the Messy Little Monster Shop if you don't want to make your own.
I have a feeling this outdoor mud kitchen is going to be used a lot over the coming months. Harry is already talking about serving up extra muddy surprises for family and friends!
Harry: Age 3
We hope that you have fun making your own outdoor mud kitchen DIY and that your kids love playing with it.
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