Mucky Play

Aim

The Ape Project would like to create a Mud Kitchen for the younger children that access our Adventure Playground and community garden.

The APE Project is seeking funding to enrich our free open access play sessions at St Paul's Adventure Playground through the creation of a mud kitchen for some of the younger children that attend. We currently run 4 sessions per week on a Thursday, Friday 3.15- 6.15pm, and Saturday afternoon 1-5pm.  We also run an inclusive session every Saturday morning for disabled children and their families. Recent monitoring figures show that: 

• 70% of our users are classed as BME / 40% identify as Somali or Somali British 
• over 50% live in social housing / 40% of users live in flats
• 32% are single parent families and 49% are in receipt of benefits.

Mud Kitchens are more than just the chance to explore mud, get messy and have fun. They also provide a whole variety of different learning opportunities including sensory, imaginative, creative and exploratory play. It will enable children to connect and interact with the natural world around them and can help children develop tactile skills with sensory play.

Mud kitchens stimulate creativity and imagination and provide engaging and valuable play to children in a wide age range – they build confidence and self-esteem, and encourage children to work together as a team or independently. Mud play and other outdoor activities not only get them away from screens, but give children fresh air, exercise, and sunlight.

Many of our children are prohibited from playing in the natural world with parental fear of dirt and due to economic instability, have a real fear of clothes and shoes being damaged. For this reason we are looking to get Wellington Boots and All-in-one suits for the younger children to wear when playing in the mud kitchen and funding to build and equip the mud kitchen with pots, pans, spoons, ladles etc to help support the children’s play.

This project successfully funded on 16th June 2021