The Magic of the .....Outdoor Kitchen

Oooh a favorite of mine; the freedom of the outdoors, the sounds of nature, the possibilities for large scale mess and the certainty of exploration all around.   I have had many variations on the Outdoor Kitchen, and absolutely love the learning possibilities here, from capacity, quantity and 'too much!' to the lovely problem solving of will it fit? What will happen if I add this? Will that smell yuck or yum ?!

The Outdoor Kitchen comes in many forms, the Mud Zone, The Texture Kitchen, The Woodland Café, The Bug Bistro but the opportunities are the same, the uniqueness comes from us and our wonderful children.

Some of my most favorite teaching sessions have been those using the resources that are naturally found in the outdoors, weeds, grass seeds, herbs, flowers and petals gathered from the garden (but not the growing areas!) The possibilities are endless, but also unique to your own setting. The thing that brings us all together here is the clear and obvious learning opportunities.

The Prime Areas are well addressed, from carrying heavy pots and over spilling pans to mixing, mashing and crushing. Fine and Gross motor skills are naturally challenged. The opportunities for talk are abundant and, as long as the adults are well engaged and are filled with luscious, descriptions and deep, meaningful questioning, the learning will always be valuable. The social aspect of, 'look what I have discovered' is a huge driver in supporting both talk and friendship.

The beauty of these natural items is that they can be gathered by the children themselves and have wonderful links to seasonal and scientific learning. Take for example the long grass, there are so many different varieties, textures and if the time is right seeds. There is no way I can create such a fascinating resource!

So, on that note, what can we add? Teachers are often asked, I know I am, about how we are extending or challenging. I believe that children will do this themselves, but there are a few items the Outdoor Kitchen can have to give this every opportunity to flourish.

The staple of any Outdoor Kitchen is the pans, muffin trays and bowls, all of varying sizes of course. But if you add in a few unusual items, mystery objects, those that are not so common in the everyday home, then the play too, will travel into the unknown. For example, I recently went on holiday to Turkey and came back with one of these, it is, of course for tea, but in my Outdoor Kitchen it has become the creator of dragon juice, the provider of Kryptonite, and the attracter of the lover of shiny things (a small wee one who never gets messy, but loved this tea set so much it was worth breaking his six-month avoidance of mess for!)

I am a constant collector and recently acquired a lovely set of rusty keys, not something usually found in the Outdoor Kitchen, but casually left on the table led the children into a variety of discussions about who they belonged too, if they could use them, and if they did use them, what they could try to unlock. The individuality of learning through play is just golden. One little guy spent an age, painstakingly scrubbing off the rust on each key; such focus, such perseverance! Another negotiated to take the biggest key and spent the morning trying it, not just in all the doors he could find in the unit, but many holes and cracks found about 'just to see if it is a magic one!' A little girl, often to be found in the Kitchen, decided quickly that the keys belonged to a giant who would be returning to retrieve them, and to prevent us being eaten busied herself cooking up a storm of giant food to distract him; glorious!

I recently went on a training session with the wonderful Alice ( https://alicesharp.co.uk/adventures ) where she spent a good while talking about her extensive collection of mashers. Mashers of all varieties, that in all honesty I had never seen or heard of before! The point being that by extending from the usual, in simple things, we can create opportunities that excite, extend and amaze! On another note, check out Adventures with Alice, she is marvelous and her resources are enviable! Following this I invested in garlic presses, oh what a joy they have been! Until you have a set of these beauties you cannot possibly know how challenging it is to get just the right thickness of mud to effectively make worms! This was almost a three-day project!

This leads nicely to the need for a variety of textures; such as sand, gravel and clay.   Adding these then challenges the usual mixing, consistencies and in light of the above, the effectiveness of current resources. Thus, the game begins again!

My final 'love' when it comes to this is my cast of small characters; not wooden, not hand painted, but in fact old, battered, and plastic (the horror!)

The sneaky addition of a couple of these adds excitement and intrigue; Where have they come from? What do they eat?! Why are they here? and on practical note, plenty of maths; where will they sit? do we have enough bowls? Is that spoon too big?! They also allow for a spot of clever targeting, Spiderman currently entices my boisterous twin boys to do anything! Pegasus encourages one of my less confident speakers to talk, explaining what is going in in secret whispers to her, and the Puppies in my Pocket have worked wonders on a bunch of Kitchen hooligans; we can't have rowdiness in the Kitchen whilst the tiny Puppies are around!

So, in our many variations of the Outdoor Kitchen, what are your must haves, favorites and best tips?