Nature Crafts : Art and Sculpture
Walking around the forest, you will notice lots of things lying around the forest floor. There will be sticks, leaves, twigs, pine cones, feather, stones and pebbles. There may be logs if there has been recent forestry work in the forest. You will find things of different colours, sizes, shapes and textures.
All of these materials can be used to create forest floor art. These could be 'pictures' or designs arranged on the forest floor, or they could be sculptures, free standing 3 dimensional works of art !
They could even make maps, fairy villages, Goblin Dens, or anything they fancy. It's all art after all.
And the beauty of forest art is that, eventually, all the materials used in the creation of the artwork will be returned back to nature. Ideally you wouldn't introduce anything artificial or man made. Never include plastics in forest art, because we are becoming increasingly aware of the damage plastics can do to a natural environment.
Forest art should only contain what is found in the forest, although there are some examples (shown below) of people using things they have brought into the forest to help them make the artwork. As long as these things are taken away again, then no damage will be done.
This is another activity with conservation at it's heart. Conservation could be thought of as "the careful maintenance and upkeep of a natural resource to prevent it from disappearing or becoming harmed."
The impact of plastics on our oceans.
Thsi video
Creating forest art
Creating forest art, whether it is flat on the floor or an upright sculpture is easy. You can give the children a 'theme' to work on, or you can just set them to work coming up with their own ideas, and ways of executing those ideas !
This, then, is a great activity for stimulating imaginations, creative play and team working, as they work in small groups on a piece of forest art ! It involved both gross and fine motor skills, and also problem solving !
Making a clay dish
Leaf shaped bowl
Making a plaque
Points to ponder ...
This can be a quick and easy task to undertake. It does, though, mean that you will be asking the children to go out and collect leaves, fronds of fern and samples of grasses, and this is not something we would normally want to children to do.
Usually we SHOULD be telling children NOT to damage trees and plants. We should be encouraging them to look after their environment, and not just when out and about in the forest.
In this case, though, we can use this activity to talk to the children about conservation. Sometimes it is necessary to take, from the environment, what we need, but it is important to stress that we must avoid causing damage, and we should never leave rubbish in the forest (or anywhere !)
So ... take a leaf, but don't break a branch.
Pick some ferns ... but try to pick ferns from different clumps of ferns. Don't just go ripping up a whole plant. Teaching the children to look after natural environments when they are young will encourage them to grow into caring and compassionate adults.
Delayed Gratification.
We live in a world where we all want things NOW ! We complain if someone doesn't reply to a d.m. immediately, or if we are told that out latest Amazon delivery will take TWO WHOLE DAYS to get to us. We have become a society where we expect things to happen immediately (instant gratification), and that's not healthy !
This task teaches children that sometimes we have to wait to see the 'fruits of our labours'. This is a valuable life lesson. Sometimes they need to learnt to wait, and that's ok !