If you're craving chocolate, this isn't the recipe for you. But if you're craving an ooey, gooey marvelously messy craft for your favorite little people, you're in the right place! Mud pie adventures can be as simple as digging a hole, filling it with water, and squishing around with bare hands to slap a sloppy mound of mud into a pie shape. Or, you can use our tips for a little more civilized experience for your budding garden chef.

What You'll Need:

• Dirt, free from rocks, sticks, and debris
• Water from a hose or watering can
• Decorations, like pebbles, flowers, leaves, seeds, acorns, glass beads
• Old bowl
• Old wooden spoon or stick for stirring
• Old pie pan

How to Make the Ultimate Mud Pie:

1. Dress your little chef in old clothes that can get dirty and head outside—this is a messy activity.

2. Take a stroll through your garden and backyard to collect things like flowers, seeds, leaves, acorns—anything that will look pretty as pie decorations. Craft items like beads can work, too.

3. Dig some dirt from the ground, remove any rocks or grass, and put it into an old bowl.

4. Add water and use an old spoon or stick to mix the mud until it's the consistency of bread dough.

5. Spoon the mud from the bowl into an old pie pan.

6. Time to decorate! Top the pie with a pretty mixture of flowers, seeds, and other found items.

7. Serve this mud pie masterpiece at a teddy bear picnic in the backyard—just be careful not to get your guests dirty.

When it's time to clean up, a bucket of clean water and an old towel will do the trick, but for extra fun, just turn the hose or sprinkler on to wash the ingredients off your little one!