What is more fun to a child than adding a little water to some dirt? May is the perfect time to let kids splash in puddles and let the inspiration begin. Make mud pies and ponds and roads. When I was a child we lived back a long lane that was filled with big holes. My dad owned a trucking company and the big trucks were hard on the gravel. I loved it. After a gentle warm rain, my sister and I would walk up and down the driveway through every puddle. My brothers preferred the sand pile where they replicated everything my father did on his job with the big trucks. We were entertained as our imagination went to work. The puddles became rivers we had to cross and the sandpile turned into a stone quarry.
My own children were no different from myself and siblings. Our kids played the entire summer outside. They were fortunate enough to have a sand pile that consisted of no less than 10 tons of sand. (That was a perk of my dad’s trucking company.) The pile started out as high as the swing-set, and by the end of summer it was ground level. Mud pies, ponds, circuses, Olympics, G-I Joe’s, sand buckets, farms, and the list goes on happened in the sand pile. To entertain children for hours and summers all you really need is a little dirt + water and the freedom to play in the mud. And that = FUN!