Week 7 - Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

Week 7 - Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program (the Halloween edition)

Weather: cool, grey and rainy today

Soup made by the kids: Not soup today, but festive wood-fired pizza

Herbal project today:

• herbal bath bombs with lavender and calendula petals
  

Art lessons today:

• graphite transfers (fancy stenciling) onto paper
• DIY shadow puppets
• extended doll-making session (making hair, clothing, costumes)
  

Other highlights:

• making personal-sized pizzas baked in the wood-fired oven outside
• Halloween games, such as the pumpkin obstacle course, apple-on-string bobbing, and relays
• wonderful costumes worn by all - we had two wolves, a fox, a few witches, a bandit, a red haired elf, a bat, a construction worker, and more!
• pumpkin puddings and hot apple cider by the fire to warm ourselves

Week 2: Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

Week 2  - Thinking Tree Art & Nature Program

Weather: mix of sun and drizzly rain
Soup made by the kids: Creamy Carrot & Garden Herbs (thyme, basil, oregano, fennel)

Handmade projects today:

• wool felt bunny pin (practice embroidering/stitching)
• botanical sun prints on paper using collected leaves and flowers
• branch weaving

Art lessons today: 

• charcoal (light and shadow) using found natural objects (e.g. pinecones, sumac, milkweed seeds, leaves, branches, seed pods, snail shell)
• working with sketching different perspectives (a bunny as the subject)

Other highlights:

• walk to community garden
• brewing Fall Flowers herbal tea over the fire
• strawbale circle time
• making strawbale slides, chairs, games and other straw pile fun
• nectarine crumble as snack
• weaving a yarn web together as example of the strong web we are creating in this program

 

Waldorf-inspired art classes - embroidery, drawing, constellation cards

Again, the days are passing quickly around here!  Two weeks of our Waldorf-inspired art classes have passed, and there are many beautiful moments from these classes that could be shared.  The children are relaxed, working intently at their projects, and many times we look around amazed at the quiet concentration in the room.  In the past week the handwork project was embroidery, working toward a larger finished project of a pouch to hold a set of small story stones that each child will make for themselves.  This week the younger children (Young Acorns) used block crayon drawing to inspire or "illuminate" letters of the alphabet, a nice way for them to practice forming their letters.  S for "swan", R for "robin", O for "owl", and so forth.  The older kids continued with sketching exercises in their journals, studied star constellation charts and then made their own constellation cards that can be viewed by candle or against a sunny window.

Waldorf-inspired art classes with kids

We've had some busy, fun weeks with our Waldorf-inspired art classes!  The kids have been trying their hands at felting wool, pottery and peg dolls - the more tactile and messy, the better! Here are a few photos of what has been taking place in the weekly sessions, and the many busy hands that have been at work: 

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.