Week 1: Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

We have a wonderful new program here at Little City Farm this fall.  For the next 12 weeks, we have expanded our kids nature-based art classes into a one day long program each week.  The Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program is an exciting day each week, where about a dozen children aged 6-12 spend time outdoors to focus on hands-on learning that brings various aspects of nature-inspired art-making together.  The children are engaged in outdoor cookery using local seasonal veggies and on occasion we will also use our wood-fired outdoor oven for some baking.  We work on herbal botanical activities focusing on getting to know one main herb each week.  We have fibre arts activities, and life drawing sessions based on the collections and findings from our walks.  We enjoy herbal tea from the garden and a warm soup together at lunch each week, made from scratch and prepared by the many hands in our group.

This week we made a fabulous potato-leek with loads of herbs from the garden; made simple plant presses and collected flowers to be preserved for a future art project; worked at sketching our favourite animal and dream home/neighbourhood; collected a series of small found objects from our walk to a nearby community garden; had circle time to get to know each other and brainstorm how we want to best work together to make this a great experience for everyone.  We look forward to seeing this program unfold as we move through the autumn season together.

Here are a few snapshots of the first day:

Waldorf-inspired art with kids: working with clay!

I think this class was the highlight in our kids art series so far!  Who does not love getting their hands into cool damp clay?   We printed leaf patterns from leaves we had collected outdoors, and shaped the clay into pinch pots, beads and other shapes - the kids let their imaginations run wild.  We used air dry clay, which is a little bit more fragile when dried, but it is so easy to work with that it makes a quick satisfying project for little hands.  They could choose to paint it later at home.

The older group of our kids also worked with wooden stamps to print beautiful patterns for necklace pendants or ornaments.  They could have easily spent several hours working on their projects!  Seeing the enthusiasm from all the kids, we will include clay work in our next round of art classes for sure.

New classes start January 15, 2017 - and registration is available here.