Did you “mud” on 29 June 2011?

I am pleased that Alicia (July 10 intake) and her children at Tadika Sri Emas Bandar Utama got to mud in conjuction with International Mud Day. Alicia in her recent posting on the Jul10 yahoo group wrote:

… when the activity started, most of the children actually did not resist mud and they started to touch and feel the mud. Their curious nature actually got them to touch and ask “what is that?” There was a little girl who got some mud on the face and hair too. On the other hand, there is a little boy who just refused to touch the mud at all … but eventually he too started to take a very tiny pinch to try and then moved to a larger piece. The children actually used techniques of rolling, flattening and some even made flat cookies or rolled them into balls.

Alicia rightly pointed out that children are curious by nature. Give them mud and they will be drawn into a sensorial exploration of the material. To mud, however can be messy and Alicia in her reflection, concluded that teachers play an important role in exposing children to different forms of materials. Way to go Alicia!

ALso noteworthy is Vijaya’s (April 10 intake) contribution. For our Art and Class session on 25 June, she brought packets of mud gathered from her neighbourhood. It was a shame that no one explored with mud during our session, but a good many of us did take home a mud package each. My 12 year old daughter therefore got to “mud” on International Mud Day. When you get older, there seems less of a fascination to try new things. She was receptive to the idea of mud play, but she did not dive into like the children in Alicia’s school. She was somewhat squeamish at the start, and this was really clean mud. She found the mud unpredictable, unlike the playdoh she grew up on. The texture she said was smooth sometimes and at other times rough and sandy. She rolled it and tried to shape it and eventually decided to form a mud image of herself, and her dog. She ended up roasting mud marshmallows over a mud fire. At least for a while, she was in touch with nature and away from the world wide web!