Nature Art: A Summer Experience

Apparently summer has taken over and my blog has suffered...I haven't posted in quite a while.  I've been teaching a summer school class that is totally out of my normal 3rd grade teacher routine.  I have to admit it is refreshing to do something new and that helps kids learn about the natural world.

The name of the class is Nature Art.  It's designed for kids in 3rd and 4th grade, but I've had some kids "special request" to come back as 5th graders.  All the art projects in the class use natural materials or a nature theme to create the art.  The class runs for 16 days and there's a different project each day.  Some days we work outside; like when we are creating our stepping stones.  Other days we go out and collect; like on the day we make our pounded plant wall hangings.

Each day of class we start with a community circle question that helps the kids to get to know each other as well as gets their brain ready for what we'll be learning about that day.  No matter what I teach I always use community building to help bring the group together as quickly as possible.

One of my favorite projects is making pounded plant hangings.  The kids are intriqued when I pull out hammers and fabric!!!  I teach them a bit about plants and pigments before we go out to collect plants for the project.  After we come back I demonstrate how to pound plants into fabric.  I try a variety of plants so they have an idea which ones work well and which ones just leave a brown blob.
If you plan to do this project with kids test out some plants in the area.  If the weather has been REALLY dry the pigments don't come out as well.

If you are working with kids in literacy, math, science or art make sure that you are digging in!!