MAMA Children’s Activity Post; “Muddy Puddles”

One of my son’s favourite things to do is to jump in muddy puddles…….an activity a certain little pig may have introduced him too! At least he knows he must always wear his boots and insists that I do too!

So whilst spending the afternoon jumping in muddy puddles I started to think if we could introduce muddy puddles into our MAMA activity afternoons (in case it was too rainy to go outside even if we were wearing our rain gear!).

Equipment

For the painting bit;

– Plastic activity mat (for table/floor).
– Second activity mat/old towel for floor if you do this at the table.
– Different pots (to mix your muddy puddles in).
– Different coloured paints (non toxic, water based): I used the paint bottles that all had a little bit of paint left in as squeezing the paint out is part of the fun for this activity.
– Pots/jugs of water.
– Paint brushes/sponges to mix and paint with.
– Paper/card.
– Camera: this activity is good to take photos of whilst your child is doing it as you make some patterns which can be lost when the muddy puddles dry.
– Old clothes/aprons for you and your child.
– LOTS of wipes.

For Decoration Bit;
– Stickers.
– Permanent marker pens/felt tips.

Step 1: Preparation.

Set up your table/floor by covering the area with your plastic activity mat (plus second activity mat/old towel on floor if you do this up the table). Put all your paint bottles, pots, water, brushes and sponges out on table. Ensure you and your child are in aprons or old clothes as I’m not going to lie this gets messy (but is ALOT of fun)!!

Step 2: Mixing muddy puddles!

My son loves squeezing the paint out so I asked him to choose a colour and then let him squeeze it into one of the pots, we then poured water into it and mixed it up with the brushes. Other colours were then added as he chose them (this is good for colour recognition practice)! We then did this in several pots so we had lots of muddy puddles! My son really enjoyed this part, there is something about pouring and mixing things that he loves and the freedom to chose and squeeze the paints added to the fun! Do not worry about how the muddy puddles look this activity is really about playing and getting messy rather than the final product.

Step 3: Splashing around in muddy puddles!

The next stage in this MAMA activity involved pouring the puddles onto paper/card and then making patterns by lifting the paper up and watching the puddles run down the paper, mixing the puddles with brushes and of course causing splashes in the puddles with our hands! At this stage I took photos of him experimenting which came out really nicely as they were vibrant and still wet so they looked like puddles. My son played with his puddles and mixed new ones for a good hour, the longest he’s been engaged in an activity!

Step 4: Tidy tidy tidy up!
Some of the paper/card was VERY saturated so I did not keep these but a few with nice muddy puddle splodges on I put aside for later. I then put the painting pots and brushes in to soak whilst I wiped down the excess mess and then put my son in the bath- this in itself then made another muddy puddle!! I then finished cleaning all the equipment when he was finally tucked up in bed.

Step 5: Sticker time!

My son loves stickers and so thought we could finish off this activity by decorating our muddy puddles with stickers of his favourite characters!

Hope you enjoyed getting messy don’t forget to share any of your MAMA adventures we’d love to hear from you! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!