Thursday, April 16, 2009

Stuck in the Mud


Amazon description: Early in the morning, down on the farm, a new day was dawning, peaceful and calm . . . until Hen discovers that one of her chicks is stuck in the mud!
How many animals will it take to pull Chick out of the mud?
A fun-packed farmyard romp with a surprise foldout ending!

Stuck in the Mud by Jane Clarke has been a favorite in our house for a few weeks now. The book was recommended to us by my sister, the amazing librarian, and we are so very grateful. I was very excited when Shannon asked little ol' me for a book recommendation and we were thrilled to participate in the reading challenge featuring this book.


A few months ago, I read about clean mud and added it to my list of things to do with C and R. This seemed like a great opportunity to try it out.


First, we grated a bar of soap. I did most of the grating, but I did let R and C try it themselves VERY carefully, holding the very end of the bar of soap.


Second, we ripped up three rolls of toilet paper and piled it on top of the soap. We bought this toilet paper at the dollar store. I read somewhere that cheaper toilet paper works better for this project.


Last, we added one quart of water and mixed it all together with our hands. I should say that I mixed it with my hands because C and R would not touch it. Neither one of them likes to get their hands dirty which is why I opted for clean mud, but at this point I was wondering if they would even get to enjoy this great sensory experience.




They happily placed some of our farm animals in the "mud" very cautiously, without touching the "mud".


Lots of animals stuck in the mud and still no hands in the "mud".



I even provided a basin of water and a towel so they could rinse and dry their hands as often as they wanted.



I finally convinced R to put her feet in the "mud" and she LOVED squishing it between her toes!





R, C, and I even sculpted a snowman!





It really is a neat sensory experience. I was amazed at how sculptable it became. I was happy that C and R finally came around and touched the "mud" but I did a lot more squishing than they did. I had to keep stopping to wipe my hands on the towel so that I could take pictures. Also, just in case you were wondering, we did this on our living room rug but only because R and C are both sick with fevers. They did a good job keeping the "mud" in the pan.


I wanted to make something that looked a little more like real mud so we headed to the kitchen and made chocolate pudding. I had all of the ingredients for this recipe.




Poor R has a bad cold and a fever and it always shows in her eyes. She still had fun making pudding.



And even more fun eating pudding, or mud as we called it. C tried it too but he didn't like the flavor; he is a Jello pudding fan and I guess the homemade variety is not sweet enough for his taste. The rest of us thought the mud was delicious!

4 comments:

Gidget Girl Reading said...

wow your are amazing making pudding!!!! very impressed I might have to try that recipe!

Love the clean mud :)

Ticia said...

I"m going to have to remember that one!

Bran said...

My BIG library (that usually has everything) did not have that book. We got another mud bood though, so we'll be reading that this week.

Annette W. said...

I had never heard of clean mud! :) Thanks for sharing!