By: Martianne Stanger

April showers?  Bring them on!  We have had our fill of cold and snow.  We are ready for the rain!

That's right. Rain.

Mud kitchen Not only does our family enjoy many activities for all ages when warm, refreshing rains fall, but we also love the mud!

Each spring and summer, my children become happily engaged with our backyard mud kitchen.  As they do, I marvel at the way they tweak the design of our outdoor play kitchen – and their use of it – to match their current interests and developmental stages.  Last year, among other things, that involved lots of sorting, stacking and imaginative play with cookie tree blocks.

Another thing that strikes me when my children play with our mud kitchen is how their friends react to it.  Most love it!  The combination of found items, mud and imagination bring a time-tested classic way to play, actually doing so seems "new" and "different" to some of the kids' friends.

Mud kitchen Their moms comment , "I never imagined my (insert name) would be so content and calm for so long."  Or, "Wow, I could bring our old plastic play kitchen outside and they might start playing with it again."  Or, "How cool that they don't even need a real kitchen to play with."

I am not sure why, but it seems that in the rush of modern day life, pauses to play in the mud aren't as common as they once were. That could change this April.

Go on, enjoy some sensory fun and learning outside in a mud kitchen this spring.