As a child I have fond memories of making mud pies in the back yard with my siblings and cooking them in the play house we had in the back yard, I remember playing in mud as a joyous time and getting outside as often as we could. This year I was excited about Mud Day, because it fell on a weekend we decided to celebrate a few days early.
We had a great time with the mud, celebrating using clay and even learning about the other properties of mud as a face mask and eating mud pie with worms!
Clay is a great learning tool for children. Working with clay is appropriate for almost every child’s developmental level. Clay naturally stimulates a child’s curiosity. It is a strong expressive medium ideal for enhancing children’s development and learning. Working with clay improves dexterity and uses both small and large muscles. Children use their arms, back and shoulders to mould clay. Working with clay also increases a child’s eye-hand coordination. Children’s imaginations are stimulated through the use of clay. They stretch their minds to develop new ideas for things to make and new ways in which to use the clay and tools. A child that learns at an early age that anything that can be imagined can be created is more likely to be more creative and intelligent than a child that only plays with manufactured toys.
The children then applied face masks with Rotorua Mud! We learnt about the good properties of mud for the skin and loved the texture and coldness felt on our face and the dryness once it set! What beautiful skin we had afterwards!!
For afternoon tea we had our own version of mud pie with worms! It looked and tasted a lot better than the version I had as a young child however!
