Mud Painting with The Outdoors Project

Chunk and I have had a really fun week going back to basics outdoors!

We signed up to attend a session with The Outdoors Project who run various sessions for children of all ages during term time and holidays.

The Outdoors Project

As their name suggests it’s all outside activities including nerf games, bouldering, climbing, bush craft survival and preschool activities.

We went to a preschool activity at Preston Park which runs on Tuesday mornings for just over an hour.

At the start of the session our instructor Beth and a fox puppet sang hello to us before we played hide and seek. Beth would call out “1, 2, 3 where are you?” and the children would have to reply “1, 2, 3 we’re over here!”.  I thought this was brilliant because if Chunk were to actually get lost and I sang those words then he could reply so I could find him, so I am definitely adding those words to our hide and seek game from now on.

We played a couple of other classic outdoor games before we sat down for a story about an animal that jumped in and over puddles. Beth then gave the children spoons to dig holes in the mud so they could make their own puddles before they filled them with water.

They then took it in turns to jump over the puddles and Chunk had great fun doing this, and some of the younger kids found it hilarious to splash in the puddles!

Beth then gave the children some cups and asked them to fill them with mud and water before she gave them paint brushes to stir it with. This produced muddy paint which they then got to use on the trees and Chunk absolutely loved this.

Painting mud on trees is such a simple idea yet so clever and definitely one I intend to use in future (if I can cope with more muddy clothes!).

The kids were then able to paint the soles of their shoes with the paint and stamped on bright card to produce muddy footprints that we could keep.

We then played ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf’ and a couple of other little run-around games before we sang goodbye.

I was very impressed with the session because it reminded me of so many games I used to play in the school playground and Chunk remained excited and active throughout the entire session.

We got to run around together and I even enjoyed it!

The Outdoors Project currently run sessions like this in various parks across Brighton and Hove as well as Bristol, and are looking to begin even more which is brilliant.

If you are in either of these areas I recommend you give it a go and see don’t assume it’s just for boys as the majority of kids there were girls and they were getting stuck into the mud just as much as the boys if not more!

Just don’t forget to wear wellies and clothes you don’t mind getting muddy or wet for both you and your child and be thankful you don’t have to clear up afterwards…

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