Snow Kitchen for the Northern Mamas
Don’t put away your mud kitchen - keep the fun going with a winter snow kitchen!
Every year on Pinterest I see the most amazing mud kitchens, they are organized, full of loose parts for children to play with, and child sized. At one point we had a plastic play kitchen in our home and the kids played with it in predictable ways, the kitchen had constraints, the fridge had to be used like a real fridge and the oven could only hold so much. Our outside mud kitchen was a beautiful mess – with no constraints on their imagination whatever loose parts from the sandbox or backyard that could be incorporated were. I’m talking dinosaur soup, acorn ice cream, and cake-lettes only nature could help design.
Every year, fall would come and we would get distracted by raking and destroying leaf piles instead of ‘cleaning up’ for the season. Those first snows would blanket everything and cross country skiing and sliding would take over as passions – and then after Christmas holidays I’d break out the squirt bottles, grab the bin of mud kitchen bowls, utensils, pots with lids and set them loose on the patio table. The colourful concoctions they’d make were joyful, if only my limited adult palette could have truly tasted the bright and imaginative dishes made just for me!
Here in Saskatoon, winter lasts November to April so why do we only have mud kitchens in the summer? We have another 6 months of the year that our outdoor loving children could play in a snow kitchen. In the Reggio Emilia approach, parents or teachers will set out a ‘provocation’, think large butcher paper on the floor and crayon rocks, and the children are intrigued to create. Now most parents have paper or colouring books and crayons – but it’s the novelty of seeing the materials in a new way that entices children to create. I have a backyard full of snow, and children over-full of energy, with some food colouring and our camping dishes there is a limitless kitchen/lab/art studio to explore.
A provocation to paint snow shapes.
Loose parts collected on nature walks like pinecones or acorns will stand up to the freeze of winter, stash them in an old food container and pull them out to engage your children. If you have a kiddo who loves trucks grab one with big wheels, the tracks it makes in the snow will be just as engaging, the construction trucks work year round here! Dinosaur fan – it’s time for a Jurassic snow world. Robots, dragons, Batman – if they won’t get lost in the snow they can probably be used in snow play.
Just like a sandbox, things will get messy. Somethings will be lost in the snow – and joyfully re-discovered in the spring snow melt. If adding water to make snow sticky, little fingers may get cold, dress in layers, have extra mitts to change into, warm up inside. Wearing mitts will reduce your hands dexterity and your children may appreciate re-purposed kitchen utensils (ladle and spatula). You can use old yogurt containers to make a snow castle or cake, milk cartons cut open on one side to make bricks, or freeze balloons with water to make ice spheres, the only limit here is your imagination. My children have loved adding colour, either through a squeeze bottle or a spray bottle filled with water and food colouring. Teach them to stash their supplies in a lidded bin or crate and tuck it out of the snow, or under the patio table so it’s easy to find for the next play.
A stump, a flat surface and a crate of tools can provide hours of outdoor play.