Minnesota Children's Museum gets kids to play in the mud

The Mud Zone at the Minnesota Children's Museum is exactly what it sounds like.

An outside portion of the St. Paul museum has two giant bins filled with dirt, vessels like pie tins and bowls and spigots for water. Next to it sit two stations with rolling pins, cookie cutters and some sinks, all of which are caked in mud by mid-day.

Parents may not like the sound of the messy fun, but kids seem to love it. And museum officials say making mud pies has a host of benefits.

"Playing with mud is surprisingly educational," said Bob Ingrassia, vice president of external relations at the museum. "It's very sensory, obviously, and there's a lot of thinking going on."

Ingrassia said the museum team met with engineering students at the University of St. Thomas to design the special area, complete with mud "flingers," where kids can toss mudballs at plastic "monsters."

Getting the mud mix just right was essential, said Ingrassia. "Kids and adults notice this right away: You have to get the consistency of the mud right."

The museum goes through about 1.5 cubic yards of general, all-purpose topsoil a week.

Jessica Turgeon, director of experiences at the museum, oversaw the St. Thomas student research team's painstaking effort to make sure the dirt was perfect for kids to play in.

"We needed dirt that didn't have too much sand or clay in it, and was a reasonable price and easily available," she said.

Henry Fischer, 10, from Lakeville, didn't seem all that concerned about ratios or the educational aspects of mud. On a recent Friday afternoon, he was just there to have fun.

"I'm going to make a pie, but I need more mud," Fischer confided, while speeding to the dirt bins. He was on a special visit to the museum for his brother Max's sixth birthday.

"This is where he wanted to come," said Valerie Fischer, his mother. She explained that Max doesn't normally like getting dirty, but he was happily rolling out the mud like dough, wearing a smock provided by the museum.

Kenzie Gisvold, 34, from Appleton, Minn., brought her three kids to the museum as summer bucket list activity.

The family lives on a farm, said Gisvold, so "they're used to getting dirty."

But Lakelyn, 2, Oaklee, 6, and Axle, 9, seemed particularly engaged with the museum's all-ages mud exhibit. "I like that it keeps all of them busy," she said.

The museum is taking parents' minivan interiors into account, so they provide smocks for kids to wear while playing, and there's a small-human-height spigot away from the area, where kids can rinse off.

Axle wasn't all that excited about after-play cleanup. What excited him was making a mess.

"It's fun to splat mud all over," he said.