Nursery World - Enabling environments outdoors: Uh-uh! Mud!

An early years setting's garden designed along the lines of a popular children's book includes everything except the bear. Helen Hicks, manager of Boomerang Kids in Saltdean near Brighton, explains its journey.

Our deputy Mary Slater had the idea to base our garden on We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and the children just love it.

In the story, the family encounters every kind of terrain. Our garden reflects that:

- Uh-uh! Grass! We have planted our own long 'swishy-swashy' grass, but we've also added unusual plants that are smelly and spiky to encourage discussion.

- Uh-uh! A river! Our builders created a rill or stream, with a pipe connected to a tap nearby, so we can let the water trickle into the 'river' and down to the muddy area.

- Uh-uh! Mud! The 'river' water creates the mud, while a soakaway keeps the mud at the right consistency and gives the children all the 'thick oozy mud' they could wish for.

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