Medicine Pouch - Urban Wild Classes for Kids at LCF

What a perfect fall day, just right for our second outdoor class for kids as part of the Urban Wild series we are hosting this fall at Little City Farm.

For the Urban Wild series we are focusing on traditional skills / hands-on crafts that are inspired by nature - working with leather to make medicine pouches; working with birch bark to make food storage containers; making a dream catcher from dogwood and grapevine; making a bowl by burning and hollowing out a piece of wood; and so forth.  There are still a few spaces in upcoming sessions (the next four Thursday afternoons) so if interested contact us at: info (at) littlecityfarm.ca

The kids worked so industriously at their medicine pouches today!  We started with a quick brainstorm of what leather would have traditionally been used for, then what medicine pouches are all about. We soaked up the October sun's rays, while cutting, sewing, hammering/punching, piecing and designing our medicine pouches - each child with their own unique ideas to be incorporated in beautiful finished masterpieces that will hold their special treasures.  My daughter announced she is "never going to take off her pouch"!  The kids were certainly very proud of their creations.

Wild Smoothies! Urban Wild Kids Classes at LCF

We've had a great time with wild edibles lately!  Not only harvesting wild fall edibles for our household (more to come shortly about rosehips and goldenrod) but also hosting classes on the topic. 

For the first time this year we are including classes for children - and wild edibles is one topic that is so much fun to introduce to kids.  Our friend Jackie has been here to facilitate the "kids urban wild" series, and did a nice job of explaining simple methods for properly identifying, safely harvesting, and using wild edibles that are all around us.   The way she introduced the tastes of wild foods to the kids in the workshop was to make "wild smoothies".  First we all talked about the plant and how to identify it, then we walked around the yard collecting samples of the plant (so fun to see kids with little baskets traipsing around the yard picking wild greens), and tasted the leaves raw, then added them in the blender with smoothie ingredients to make delicious healthful wild blends.  The plants we included in our wild smoothies were common plants that are not easily over-harvested because they grow wild everywhere around us: dandelion, wood sorrel, lamb's quarter, and wild lettuce.  These can be added a small handful at a time, to taste (depending on how "green" you like your smoothie).

Wild Green Smoothie Base Recipe
1 banana
1 cup hemp milk (or nut milk of your choice)
1 Tbsp chia seeds or hemp seeds
1-2 Tbsp nut butter (hemp butter, almond butter, etc)
1 handful wild greens (dandelion is the most bitter, wood sorrel is lemon tasting, lamb's quarter like spinach)
3-4 ice cubes

Blend well!  Add more hemp milk to thin drink if it's too thick.  Add more banana if the flavour is too bitter.
Experiment with combinations of wild greens (nettle, fennel, dandelion, wild lettuce, wood sorrel, etc).
You can combine all manner of garden greens (chard, spinach, kale, pea shoots) with the wild greens to soften the bitter flavours.  Enjoy!

Build a Bird Nesting Box Workshop

We recently hosted a series of hands-on kids workshops here at Little City Farm, teaching traditional skills such as working with hand tools, baking bread, and using natural materials (like birch bark) to create functional items.  In the recent Build a Bird Nesting Box we talked about what kinds of nests the kids had stories about (everyone seems to have a bird nest story), what birds they have spotted in their yards, and what birds we'd like to welcome.  Then we worked on nesting boxes for small birds such as warblers, nuthatches and wrens, chickadees (with the nest box opening 1/8 inch and no bigger) that like to nest in small cavities like hollow trees.  Often these kind of habitats are not available in cities, because dead trees get taken down.  What fun to have the backyard patio filled with a lively eager group of kids (and parents) all working industriously on their projects, working together sawing, drilling, sanding, building - and so proud of their creations at the end.

More sewing club creations!

The kids sewing club continued all week here - and what amazing creations filled our table at the end of each morning.  There were coasters to give to parents, lavender pillows, tooth monsters, repaired stuffies, patched shirts, embroidered pants, superhero cuffs, and more!  And 11 super-inspired crafty sewing stars at the end of it.

Kids Sewing Club!

We've been thinking about offering kids workshops here at Little City Farm and so, given that it is March Break this week, we decided to offer a Kids Sewing Club each morning.  What a great response!  Sewing is such a useful basic skill to know (mending, darning, sewing our own clothes), and yet offers such options for creativity and fun.  And it's becoming a lost art!  This morning we had a lovely group of 10 girls (aged 6-12) sitting around the dining room table crafting and creating.  During this week we are focusing only on hand-sewing, offering basic techniques like learning to use different stitches (running stitch, whip stitch, blanket stitch, cross stitch), ways of threading needles, working with different fabrics, using recycled/upcycled materials like felted wool sweaters that can be cut up into smaller projects, embroidering and patches/applique, button holes, and other making other embellishments.  We are using the wonderful kids sewing book Sewing School: 21 Sewing Projects Kids will Love, as inspiration.  Here is what today's session looked like, and we heard many of the girls leaving with the words "I love sewing!"