Nature & Outdoor Craft Archives

Category: Nature & Outdoor Craft (Page 1 of 2)

Nature Art – Air Dry Clay Figures

On 28/09/2017

Today was a gorgeous warm (ish), but sunny autumnal day, so we decided to chill out in the garden doing some nature art. We had some air dry clay left over from a previous crafting project, so we decided to use that up and do something with it, before it completely air dried itself out in the crafting drawers! Nature clay figures it was to be.

The only supplies you need are air dry clay and things from around the garden. I sent my trio off to collect various items. They headed back with leaves, grass, twigs, sticks, sloe berries, various red berries, and anything else they could lay their hands on. I was intrigued to see twin 2 really involved in this activity, as in the past he has not been so keen. He and our little lady spent a good hour modelling their figures, while twin 1 bashed his lump into a pancake shape, and then headed off to cause mischief while the rest of us were distracted!!!

Any art and craft activity is good for their little brains (and I find it quite restorative too!). It helps their mental, social, and emotional development. Whatever they have chosen to do will usually involve honing their fine motor skills. They use their imaginations to create with their resources, and when they enjoy and like what they have made, it in turn increases their self confidence.

Some of the best supplies are outdoors in nature (and they are free too). Doing nature art gets everyone outside in the fresh air. Their attention to detail within nature is increased as they look and discuss what they are using, which can then lead onto other discussions about its role in nature, and open a whole new learning topic. Nature’s supplies are often a lot more interesting with regard to colour, smell, and texture too, making it more fun.

The finished nature art products we ended up with from today’s session were 2 hedgehogs, a snowman, and a scary rabbit….oh, and a flat pancake thingy!!

Flower Pounding – Nature’s Art

By Mammas School

On 12/05/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

Flower pounding is a very effective way of doing art with nature. My trio love doing this because it so easy and very effective. We also love seeing how our results change over the course of the four seasons.

So what supplies are required for flower pounding?

Very few?! Any shape or size of cotton based material…plain is better as your results will be more visible. You need to bear in mind that whatever you choose, the material needs to be large enough to place the flowers on one side and then fold in half. You then need to pick a good selection of flowers and leaves. When we pick our leaves for flower pounding we look for ones that would make good patterns. For example, bracken with their fronds are good, or something similar. With the flowers anything with a good solid colour will work well. Then you just need a hammer.

Instructions For Flower Pounding:

Place your material flat, and start laying your leaves and flowers onto one half of the material. You can either do this randomly, or think about the end result you would like and put more thought it into it. My trio are all about the colours and patterns at the moment, so lay them out randomly. You then need to fold the other half of the material over the top so the foliage is covered by the material.

Now you tap, tap, tap very gently with your hammer. Too hard or fast and the hammer will shred the material. Make sure you are firm enough though to see the colour coming through the material. Go over all the edges of the leaves and flowers to get the best definition results. You also need to do this on a firm surface. As you can see we have chosen our garage floor, rather than the lawn (too squishy with all the moss!), or the decking (didn’t want hammer shaped dents all over it!!). Once you think you have finished, open the material up and brush off the “crumbs” of the foliage, and you will be left with a lovely colourful pattern. One of ours turned out very much like a butterfly but this was completely accidental!! Nevertheless the children were very happy it did 🙂

Blowing Dandelion Bubbles – Nature’s Bubble Blower.

By Mammas School

On 04/05/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

We have just had a lovely afternoon blowing dandelion bubbles through the plant’s stem 🙂 The trio loved making these and then experimenting with them also.

It’s a really easy activity to prepare, and because it’s outside all mess is outdoors too…bonus!

What do you need for blowing dandelion bubbles?

Washing up liquid

Water

Bowl for mixing

Scissors

and of course….dandelions!!

Method:

Make up some soapy water

Cut the flower head off

Trim the other end of the stalk too

Swirl around one end in the soapy water (not the end you want to put up to your mouth!!).

Then gently blow through the stem, and you should see your bubble 🙂

My trio loved blowing dandelion bubbles, and then experimenting with different lengths of stem, different diameters of stem, variations of puffing, and who could make the biggest dandelion bubbles. It was such a lovely, but chilly day, they stayed there for a good while. Afterwards the chalks came out for drawing, and even a small potion was whipped up with the newly flowering plants.

Seed Bombs – The Gardening Grenade!

By Mammas School

On 03/05/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

Seed bombs are a great way to introduce colour, flowers, and therefore wildlife, into corners where nobody seems to care….just go for a walk, and lob one of these creations into a place that is dull and boring and then return in the summer to see if it has worked. They are great for brightening up places you feel are uncared for, but full of sunshine with grass or bare soil. We had an ulterior motive though here in our Swedish garden. It is HUGE…..I’m not boasting, as that is just the way where we live, but it’s 3 hours of lawn mowing & strimming a week huge. Gardens here are very different from back in the UK. Forget a lot of plants that you would have in the UK, as they won’t survive the winter. Then there are the deer and elk that like to nibble the lovely blooms, not to mention the stony wild areas that just need to be left the way nature intended. You need to work with the wild, and tame it where you can. It is a whole new experience of gardening out here. I have left a very small UK garden although it was bursting with very typical English cottage style flower beds and climbing roses, to learn very rapidly that I can’t do that here (or maintain it even if I could!). So, we have a few “wild” areas of our own, that would benefit from the gardener’s hand grenade that is the seed bomb.

Supplies Required For Seed Bombs:

1 cup of air drying clay

1 cup of compost

2 packets of seeds

(we have multiplied this to cater for the fact that I have three children doing it, and a lot of space to cover!! However, having said that, once we had put out the supplies, the boys decided they weren’t participating today!)

So how do you make them?

Break the clay into small pieces and put into a bucket or bowl

Add the compost

Rub the 2 together

Sprinkle in your seeds and gently stir.

Roll into small balls and place on a tray to dry out (1-2 days).

Choose your designated area and head out for a garden grenade throwing session 🙂

A Fairy Garden – Make Tinkerbell and Her Friends a Home.

By Mammas School

On 20/04/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

Hooray, spring is probably here now for good, and we can take our crafting and making back into the great outdoors 🙂 So much easier especially when your supplies come from there and are a tad messy. Today our little lady decided she was going to build a fairy garden. Cue 2 little boys wanting to make one as well, and before I know it we have triple the amount of fairy gardens we had before we started. So, to lighten my load a little, I suggested the mini men worked together on this one, and then I was only being pulled in 2 directions at once (although our little lady is fairly independent!).

To start with we needed to construct the fairies a little home for their fairy garden. You can make these very neatly with crafting lolly sticks (all the same length and easier to handle), but we decided to go for a more rustic look with twigs. The method is the same either way. Have 2 sticks going horizontally, and place glue on them (PVA glue just doesn’t work in these scenarios, hence why the twins need help, as we have the adult glue out!!). Then lay your pre-broken to size twigs vertically on top. Make as many walls/roofs as you need (you can use 2 to make a pointed roof, or one for a flat roof), and then leave them to dry in the sunshine while you work on the rest of the fairy garden.

Next you need some sort of tub, and if there are no holes in the bottom, just poke some in so there is drainage. I was lucky and had three shallow plant bowls in the garage so I used two of these. We filled them with soil before moving onto the next phase. We then placed our walls into the soil, making them into a square, but you can do any shape. You can pre-glue your walls together and make the house in its entirety before placing it in the soil, but as we’d used twigs, they pushed in really well and held firm.

Then the garden is left to your creativity and imagination! My trio placed moss on top of the soil for a lawn, and small stones for a garden path. We then took 2 twigs, and tied string around to make a mini washing line. Cutting up an old duster, they made towels, blankets, dresses, and even a deckchair. We made pegs by snapping very small twigs, and slicing a small vertical line in the middle so it would hold onto the washing line. The trio also added pieces of fir tree (to look like trees), and the odd crocus to brighten it up!! The sky is your limit with what you can do. Lego birds, mini barrels, mini plastic pegs, make a mini pond etc. My trio were really chuffed with their finished results, and we’ve tucked them away somewhere that is not so exposed, for them to play with out there 🙂

Wooden Nesting Box-How to Make a Bird House.

By Mammas School

On 19/04/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

Our little lady came to us one sunny morning, having decided she would like to build a bird’s nesting box for our garden. I have always been an advocate of letting children use tools such as saws, drills, and hammers (under adult supervision), so I thought this was a great little project for her to do….but not so great for me. It involved measuring and being precise, so over to Dadda went the project!

So before I go into the nitty gritty about the actual nesting box build, I want to explain a little why I feel it is important for children to be able to handle these adult tools. Mine have handled them previously doing crafts at forest school, under the supervision of forest school leaders, and also at home to build simple things under my supervision. In fact they have a box in the garden, full of wooden, a box of nails, and three short handled hammers, just for their use. Using such tools will require co-ordination, and having a project to build requires the use of creativity and imagination, not to mention using skills such as measuring. Using the tools gives the children responsibility and they learn to behave accordingly, and it heightens their sense of awareness as consequences for lack of it are more serious. Plus they lead to a real meaningful experience, it’s tangible, memorable, and the learning that comes from such an experience is immense. With all that in mind, I sent her off with her Dadda to construct their nesting box.

First of all they drew up some basic plans. The little lady explained the shape she wanted to have, and Dadda helped her measure, and show her how to draw a plan to work from. Then they set off into the garage for two days. It is a good time of year to be building this as the birds around us have just started nesting. We are really hoping for some visitors. In our previous garden in the UK, the only garden birds we had were oversized pigeons and starlings, but here we have such a vast variety. Plus the wildlife surrounding us is so rich and diverse. We have woodpeckers 100m away in the wood, herons 200m another way, and I’ve come home to see a sea eagle looking very out of place in our garden tree!! They found some old wood in the garage and set sawing the component parts they required. Once they had all of those, they needed to drill a front door for the home owners, and then hammer the lot together. We have placed it in a tree near our very successful bird feeder, hoping to draw attention to it!

Both the little lady and Dadda were very proud of their “scandi” nesting box!!! I hope we have spurred you on with our post to let you children wield a “grown up” tool or two to complete a little project 🙂

Make a Flower Press – A Fun Way to Collect Nature’s Craft Resources

By Mammas School

On 04/04/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

Flower pressing is hugely popular with my trio. My little lady has a bought flower press (long before I became acquainted with sawing and drilling as something to let children use), but my mini men have to resort to a home made one of which we will show you how to do here. Once you have pressed and preserved your pieces of nature, the ways to use them are limitless. My trio love making and creating, and now we finally have a few flowers peeping through after the long, dark, and cold Swedish Winter, I am having to control their enthusiasm somewhat or else I’d have no flowers left in the garden!! Flower pressing is the vogue in our home!

To make your own flower press you need to have the confidence and trust in your little people to let them wield some “grown up” tools. I want to explain a little why I feel it is important for children to be able to handle these adult tools. Mine have handled them previously doing crafts at forest school, under the supervision of forest school leaders, and also at home to build simple things under my supervision. In fact they have a box in the garden, full of wood, a box of nails, and three short handled hammers, just for their use. Using such tools will require co-ordination, and having a project to build requires the use of creativity and imagination, not to mention using skills such as measuring. Using the tools gives the children responsibility and they learn to behave accordingly, and it heightens their sense of awareness as consequences for lack of it are more serious. Plus they lead to a real meaningful experience, it’s tangible, memorable, and the learning that comes from such an experience is immense. I kept this very simple for my double trouble, with no precision or measuring required…I had enough on my plate making sure they weren’t nailed to their own designs!!

You can be more precise and measure your wood etc, but we sawed roughly 2 same lengths of wood. You need 2 pieces for each flower press. Then drill holes through (at least 4), and insert screws and nuts (wing nuts would look nice, but we used whatever we had in our odd screws box). Make sure you cut 4 pieces of cardboard that are the size of the wood, to place between the flowers that require pressing, and you are all set to go flower pressing!

This whole project can be done outdoors in its entirety but we had drizzle today, so headed indoors for the painting and cardboard adding!

In the past our little lady has made book marks, collages, and greetings cards, all using the flower pressing method. Today though she was utterly engrossed in her own idea of a nature guide. She pressed various spring flowers from around the garden. Then she stuck them into a journal she had made from cutting paper and taping the sheets together. Then she added a flower to a page, and using a gardening book, wrote a little piece about each flower! This was all her own initiative and she passed a whole day away immersed in her little project. I think she will add to it as the seasons progress as well.

Coloured Nature Ice Blocks – An Outdoor Winter Craft

By Mammas School

On 27/01/2017

In Nature & Outdoor Craft

Here, in Sweden, in the midst of winter, it is hard to take science and craft outdoors (and remain relatively comfortable with one’s fingers not frozen solid!). However, aside from snowballs and snowmen, there are a few lovely things that can be done. Today we did coloured nature ice blocks.

What you need for your nature ice blocks: berries or leaves etc, water source, food colouring, and some containers. I had the children running around the garden for supplies. The request was to gather colourful berries, leaves of any shape or colour, and anything else colourful. We ended up with large red berries, small red berries, small black berries, various pine needles, holly leaves, ivy leaves, some lavender sprigs, and some dried lavender flowers.

Next we placed them into a container and poured water over the top to fill the container up. The children then added some more supplies in to fill the water space up a bit more.

The next step was to add a food colouring of choice (or in mini man no.2’s case, mix 2 to make purple), and give it a stir. We then left them in a corner of the garden for nature to do its magic. The temperature is staying below zero here in the day, so all we had to do was wait a little while.

Our finished nature ice blocks with the sun shining through……..

Winter Tree Craft – Nature Weaving, Finger Painting, Journey Sticks, and Decorating Sticks.

By Mammas School

On 21/01/2017

In Art and Craft, Nature & Outdoor Craft

The first of our activities, that we chose for this week’s nature art and craft, was nature weaving. We had collected three Y shaped sticks and wound string around the V part; wind it round one branch, pull it across, and then wind it round the other, then pull it back across, and so on, until you have horizontal lines going up the V part. We had then collected various items from the garden to weave through them. Unfortunately at this time of year we are rather limited in the freezing cold with what we can collect, so evergreen supple branches had to do! The children wove them over and under each horizontal thread, and then added the next one parallel to it. At the end they tucked in brightly coloured craft feathers and tin foil to add a splash of colour!

The next idea we decided to do straight into the journals so we could keep it. A winter tree would ideally be done on coloured paper, so it could be left bare, and use white paint thumbprints to create snow around and on it. However, we lack white paint, and the paper in our books is white! So, plan B was put into action, and brightly coloured leaves were added 🙂 The children painted their arms and hands and printed them into the books. The arms became the trunks, and the fingers the branches. I love it now when mini man no.2 does things like this (and enthusiastically as well) as there was a time when he wouldn’t even go near paint, as just the thought of getting it on him would cause a melt down….but persistence has paid off and he can now enjoy the use of it. Next they did thumbprints or fingerprints for the leaves, and I love how they turned out.

The third craft was an outdoor one. A journey stick is a collection of items from a nature based walk that is then a memento of your trip 🙂 Be sure to remind the little people that they mustn’t disturb nature, so try and pick up things already on the ground.

You chose a suitable stick (chunky enough to be sturdy but not so big they can’t walk with it!), and wrap some string around it in continuous loops (these will be used to slot your items into). We used purple sparkly wool….obviously everything must be sparkly!! Our little lady is pictured slotting some undergrowth into her stick, whereas the mini men…..well, they had a sword fight!! (They did end up getting a few pieces after the sword fighting and flag waving was out of the way!). We decided as we did it, this would be an interesting thing to do every season, and then compare our photos. Today, it was pine cones, berries, small pine needle branches (a few variations), mosses, and lichen. So mainly greeny, brown. Here is her finished result.

Our last craft was a very calming one (and boy we need these periods slotted into our days, as the trio are very full on, fast, and noisy!!). We did stick decorating. Each little person had a stick and some brightly coloured wool, and then they wound the wool round the stick to make blocks of colour. This can be done as an outdoor activity, but the cold temperatures here make little fingers lose their dexterity, so today we did it indoors, after our nature walk and journey stick making.

Day 17 Making a Garden Mobile.

By Mammas School

On 18/06/2016

In Education, Nature & Outdoor Craft

Today our little lady set about making a wild mobile for our wild garden. She set herself up with all her supplies, which included a huge stick, some ribbon, fir cones, any petals/flowers she could get away with picking up, string, bits of sponge, sellotape, feathers, and half the play area bark. She then lost herself in her design for a good few hours.

She designed it gaining inspiration from other random acts of wild we have been doing already throughout June. She wanted feeding stations, so set up sponges hanging from it that had been soaked in a sugary solution. She also wanted to encourage mini beasts and made little cosy shelter areas along it twice, made from the play bark. The rest was decorated using a mixture of nature items from the garden and stuff from her craft box. It is now hanging across the rose arch, and she is very pleased with herself. I think just about the only thing she didn’t use was hammers and nails!