Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Clean As Mud

"Clean Mud" was one of the activities on this week's preschool lesson plan.  What an intriguing concept! Isn't mud by definition dirty?  I found out today that clean mud is a lot of fun.

The recipe uses Ivory Soap, toilet paper, and water: You grate 3 bars of soap, tear up 2 rolls of cheap TP, and put them both into a large tub. Next you gradually add hot water and mix until you get a nice "muddy" consistency.

The lead teacher prepared the ingredients ahead of time and had the students help her make the mud yesterday, but I got to get it out and play with it today. I put the tub on the floor, opened the lid, and sat down next to it.  Not all the children come every day, so anyone not there yesterday had no clue what was in the container.  The idea was to have groups of children squish and squeeze the mud and talk about it.  Some of them did, but quite a few were hesitant.  However, I thought it was great fun.  I scooped up a handful, smoothed it into a ball, then flattened it into a patty.  I asked the hesitant students to smell it and touch it with one finger.  A few did, and they found out it wasn't so bad.

When I was finished, I had "mud" between my fingers and under my fingernails. Cleanup was easy.  All I had to do was rinse my hands under the faucet; there was already soap on them!

1 comment:

  1. Sounds fun but I bet it didn't make your skin feel soft like "dirty" mud does. ;-)

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