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

 

Snapshots from "Homestead Camp"

This week we held our second annual Homestead Camp here at Little City Farm.  It was the idea of our daughter, to bring together other kids in the 8-12 year old range in a creative "farmstead" setting while sharing some of the projects that we like to do around here.  The outdoor day camp was held each morning, including co-operative games, garden harvested snacks (like herbal sun tea, pesto and a rainbow veggie platter, made by the kids), and a hands-on activity from the day's theme - including pollinators (making seedballs); natural plant dyes (tie-dying a favourite shirt), natural fibres (making a branch weaving, and felting a bar of soap); and finally wood-fired baking (making pizza in our outdoor oven)!  What fun!  We hope to do this again next year! 

For the fall, we have kids Waldorf-inspired art classes and mother-daughter herbal immersion classes coming up again; as well as our new line-up of family homesteading classes like cheesemaking, sourdough, kraut for kids, and more!  Registration will be open soon.

Here are some snapshots from our days at Homestead Camp this week:

Mother-daughter herbal immersion

We've been having a great time each week meeting as a small group of mother-daughters, for an 11week herbal immersion!  Each week we "meet" a new herb, and through story, art, interactive games, and hands-on remedy making we become a little more familiar with these wonderful healing plants.  We are loosely using the wonderful Herb Fairies book series, and adjusting the order of the herbs to correspond with what is blooming and available for us here each week.  This group will be offered again in the fall, here at Little City Farm.

Our weeks have so far included:
Chamomile (making chamomile-infused honey, and chamomile sun tea)
Marshmallow (making marshmallow root pastilles, and tasting "real" marshmallows)
Violets (making flower fairy salad, and candied violets)
Calendula (making calendula lipbalm, and eating calendula muffins)
Dandelion (making dandelion pesto, and tasting dandelion cookies, and root mocha)
Chickweed (making chickweed super soothing salve, and chickweed super smoothie)


Chickweed Super Soothing Salve
1 cup olive oil infused with chickweed*
1/4 cup organic beeswax
5 drops lavender essential oil per 2 oz tin

Method:
Warm olive oil and beeswax in small saucepan until was has melted.
Take off heat, add essential oil and mix well.  Pour into tins, let cool.  Label.
Keeps about 1 year.
For soothing itching, dry skin and skin rashes, minor cuts and scrapes.

Yields: aprox. 10 oz salve

* To make the infused chickweed oil:
a) solar method - fill a 1 litre jar with fresh chickweed, and top up with olive oil to about 1 inch above the herbs.  Let infuse in a bright sunny window for at least 4 weeks, shaking every few days.  Top up with more oil as needed, so herbs always stay submerged.  When it has steeped, strain out herbs and reserve the oil.

b) double boiler method - add a large handful of chickweed to a small saucepan, cover with olive oil so herbs are covered by about 1 inch.  Warm in a double boiler on low (i.e. have another pot of water below this saucepan), for about 2 hours (do not let the herbs heat too much, the oil should not be cooking the herbs).  Oil should be a deeper colour, and smell herby (not smell fried).  Strain, and use in recipe above.

Waldorf art classes for kids: Watercolour painting & crochet

We started our second round of Waldorf-inspired art classes for kids today.  We have been looking forward to meeting all the new children, and reacquainting with the returning ones.  These classes allow the children to explore a variety of art mediums and techniques, using simple classic handcrafting processes, and natural materials.  Today's session for the Young Acorns (ages 4-6) was wet-on-wet watercolour painting, the classic Waldorf tradition of exploring simple colours using wide brushes, simple lines, and wet paper as the base.  The colours run unexpectedly, and blend beautifully. We explored spring themes (even though we are only at the tail end of January), since there is grass showing outside and all our snow has melted (for now) - so yellow and green were our colours today.  The children talked about what those colours represented to them (e.g. sun, dandelions, joyfulness).

The Green Saplings (ages 7-12) also had the chance to try out crochet.  We started with "finger crochet", a basic cord without using crochet hooks, so that everyone could get familiar with the pattern of repeated loops.  Then those who felt ready moved on to using the crochet hooks to create long chains, headbands, bracelets.  The repeated pattern of crochet is simple enough for kids to learn in a few minutes.  Crochet can even feel meditative, and the room felt very peaceful as everyone worked steadily at their creations.  We also love knowing that these classes offer kids practical skills for their life - for example using crochet or knitting to make a warm scarf, wool felting slippers or toys, sewing clothing for themselves, wood working skills to use toward building a house someday, and so on.

Waldorf-inspired art with kids: Lanterns & paper stars

We are nearly done our 10 weeks of Waldorf-inspired art classes for kids!  It's been a fun series, filled with beautiful hands-on projects that were tactile, nature-based, and fun.  We've seen the children become familiar with each other, at home in our learning space, and new friendships are developing - which is so wonderful since we will continue to have these kids and their families interacting within our larger homeschool community in the coming years.  We feel so honoured to have had the chance to lead these art sessions here, and look forward to a new series of classes starting again in the new year (mid-January).  Registration will be open here shortly.

This past week was a flurry of tissue paper and glue as we made simple mason jar lanterns with the kids.  They glued the tissue paper on the outside of mason jars and tied on fresh cedar twigs.  When lit with a candle the cedar makes a beautiful wintery silhouette.  This could also be done by gluing dried leaves on the jar for a fall pattern.  The older group (the Green Saplings) also had time to make folded paper stars out of rainbow coloured Japanese silk paper.  Simple, elegant, festive - lighting up these dark days of November and December as we wait for the sun to come back and days to lengthen.

Waldorf-inspired art for kids: hand-sewing skills

Today's art classes allowed the kids to explore simple hand-sewing projects.  With these art classes that emphasize hand-skills, like knitting or sewing, we hope to equip the kids with useful skills they can use in their everyday life.  Sewing can be used to make a simple toy or gift, repair and mend a favourite shirt or sock, or even sew a new piece of clothing!  It's a basic skill that should not be lost, something essential to pass on to our kids (just like cooking and growing food). 

Our Young Acorns group made small birds from felt, while the older Green Saplings group made larger owls with multi-coloured felt of their choice and stuffed them with wool and organic lavender.  I loved watching the ways each child holds their needle, how much concentration and focus was going on, and the kinds of stitches they made to complete their work.  Each project was unique!