Mud. You either love it or hate it. My classroom loved it last year. They loved making mud in all the containers they could find and mixing it in the big hole. They loved experimenting with water, soil, chalk, wood chips, rocks, sand – seeing what makes the best mud. But most of all, they loved digging! All May and June they have been working on a project that went from ‘let’s dig up this plastic pipe’ to ‘let’s make a lake, a mud soup, a gem trap’ and to ‘let’s dig all the way through the Earth.’ What can I say – kids are awesome.

I really loved their project. It kept them engaged and very focused. They worked very hard. They worked together. They solved problems. They very incredibly dedicated to it.

Now the school year is over, a new one starts next week and I still haven’t brought myself to ‘fixing’ the hole. Every time I look at it, it makes me smile. And every time the kids see it (even the new ones), there are couple of them that intuitively pick up shovels, hoes and keep digging. I don’t think there is a way around it – the mud hole became a permanent feature in our play area. And I think it will stay one for as long as the kids keep engaging with it. I guess I  should tell the new parents to send in puddle pants.