Celebrating Mud

 Guest Post by Julie Hoel, KVR Instructor and Enthusiastic Mud Loving Grandparent

I was just out of college and visiting a friend who had three children. We were chatting when her five-year-old son came bursting in the door full of boyish exuberance and covered with splotches of mud from head to foot. She took one look at him, put on her sternest mom face, whipped out her you’re-in-big-trouble-now voice and said, “JAY MEYER, HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING IN THAT CREEK?” The smile fell from his face, he rolled his big brown eyes upward and said, “No.” The two older sisters and I tried our best contain our laughter as his mom began peeling off the muddy clothes and throwing them directly into the washer. To her credit, she did not shame him for being a muddy mess but continued with her harangue, “You know you’re not supposed to be playing in that creek!” Clearly, her concern was the danger of water play rather than dirty clothes. 

In these parts, we cannot escape the mud of the March thaw and April showers that follow. We can save ourselves irritation and frustration by just embracing and celebrating the wonders of mud. In that spirit, I would like to share my favorite holiday photo of all time. It was refreshingly different from the typical family photo of the kids clean and pressed. These parents were secure enough to celebrate their kids in all their mischievous muddiness in the deep green of a summer day.  When I recently asked their dad if I could share this image, he said, you’re “welcome to use that pic if it’s to promote kids being kids!” He added, “I think based on where we lived our kids naturally got real dirty experiencing being a kid in nature. We had 50 acres and a half mile of river frontage…what a place to be a kid!” He pointed out the nice clean laundry hanging on the line behind them. I also noticed that they are both wearing glasses that somehow remained relatively clear. Definitely experienced mudballs with some self-control!

In these two vignettes, the children sought and located the mud on their own. A quick google search will bring up many benefits of mud play including development of fine and gross motor skills, increasing cognitive skills and enhancing creativity. It also is good for the immune system and decreases stress levels. We would therefore be wise and wonderful caretakers to seek out opportunities for our children’s mud exploration. My favorite resource, Pinterest, has limitless schemes to bring mud play to every location. There are recipes for mud paint, fizzing mud and mud soup. The design suggestions for mud kitchens are endless.

But the fun of mud play is not just for children. Back in ’93, I experienced mud as art with adults during a volunteer week at Dr. Patch Adams’ Gesundheit! Institute in West Virginia. His model of good health includes humor and art as healing. Once a week, volunteers were encouraged to experience community in the mud pit. After the mud bath, there were photo sessions of numerous statuesque poses. It was a truly memorable experience!

So when you encounter the inevitable mud of the season, I encourage you remember your own fondest muddy memory and smile.  And if a mud-covered child comes bursting in your doorway, greet them with that smile and make throwing those dirty clothes into the washer a celebration.

P.S. All the above references to mud exclude flood mud.  That nasty stuff is a nightmare.

For some more muddy inspiration, check out these books and links:

 Mud by Mary Lyn Ray, Illustrated by Lauren Stringer

This beautiful book celebrates the beginning of the mud season in simple text and gorgeous illustrations. 

Mudplay for Kids: Why It's Worth the Mess - Healthline This article provides details about why messy play is so beneficial for children.

Mud, Marvelous Mud - Community Playthings With the benefits clearly outlined, this article provides ideas and considerations for embracing mud play with your child.

Risk and Play

The Kickapoo Valley Forest School Leadership Team and Governance Council members recently attended a professional development training on risk and play in early childhood with Ross Thompson, M.Ed., an early childhood educator and teaching specialist. Ross shared some important perspectives and considerations for our team as we build the culture of forest schooling in our region. We have a few highlights that we'd like to share with our outdoor learning community.

When it comes to defining risk and play, everyone has their own internal risk calculator. As Ross pointed out, "Risky play depends on who is playing and how they feel." One person may think climbing a tree feels risky, while another person may think speaking out loud in front of a group feels like a big risk. For those of us who work and care for children, considering risk from the standpoint of how we personally view risk is an important first step. 

How did you play as a child? What experiences did you have that involved risk for you? Were they physical, social, emotional? 

As we consider how our own experiences inform how we work with children, it's important to understand that our concern for the risks of a particular situation may be tied more directly to our own experiences than to the reality of our children's experiences. 

Creating an environment where children can safely explore is essential to building strong bodies and critical thinkers. When the environment is controlled to eliminate any or all risks, children may lose some of their ability to weigh, ponder, and consider their actions and decisions. 

This doesn't mean that anything goes! In fact, it requires the adults in a caregiving environment to be vigilant and engaged in assessing risk but to do so in collaboration with children. Forest schooling is an amazing opportunity to provide children with natural risk-taking opportunities through lots of opportunities to watch, try, practice, and master many things that might be considered too risky in other learning environments. 

For example, many children love to climb and experience height. Rather than telling them it isn't safe to climb a tree or to rely on the common refrain of, "Be careful!" how might we help them consider the finer points of climbing? We could try asking questions like, 

"How can you check that the branches will hold you?" 

"What's your plan for climbing down?"

Another important point Ross shared is that while risky play often challenges our comfort zones, it should never be dangerous, terrifying, anxiety-provoking, or forced. Children thrive in environments that allow them to take their time and approach a challenge on their own terms. For some children, this might mean watching other children for an extended amount of time before feeling ready to try. Ross shared a great example of a variety of stumps placed in a learning space. Some children feel ready to jump off the tallest stump, and others need lots and lots of practice on the lower stumps. The benefits of having multi-age groups exploring and learning together reinforces the need for some children to play with more risk, and others to watch and observe on their own time. 

During our training session, we learned more about how play that involves risk helps develop motor skills, social and emotional frameworks, creativity, and cognitive capacity in young children. We look forward to sharing more about how risk, play, and forest schooling intersect at an upcoming KVFS Virtual Roundtable event on November 17, 2020. Visit our website at kickapoovalleyforestschool.org for the link. 

For more information about Ross Thompson's work, check out his podcast, Teaching with the Body in Mind, and visit the associated Facebook page.