Mudpies

Baby Bear loves to sit outside and explore nature! He loves to pick up grass, flowers, leaves, sticks, etc. and unleash his powers of observation. Until this week, he had never felt the pleasure of squishing mud between his chubby little fingers, though. This past month has been very dry, and I usually have him sit on a blanket during water play to avoid ant bites on his legs (a common occurrence in our yard that we learned about the hard way). Mud was not to be found. But yesterday, during water play, he noticed a small muddy spot, scooted himself over to the edge of the blanket, and began to grab at the glorious, goopy mess. He squished, smeared, and yes, tasted (much to my dismay and cursing of his marked speed) this new wonderful discovery.

Baby Bear also noticed that the grass was much easier to pull up, roots and all, when the ground was wet. He proved this fact over and over again! This was a great on-the-spot, toddler-friendly discovery science lesson! He could also note that the grass had roots which were previously hidden under the dirt. He stared at and touched these roots in fascination.

Clean-up was amazingly easy for this spur-of-the-moment task as well. We were playing in the spot sprinkler anyway, so I just hosed him off when he was done! Chalk another one up for discovery learning!

squishing the mud between his fingers

pulling up the grass and noticing the roots