Creating Art With Natural Materials

After sorting the materials we collected on our walk, the children were very eager to touch and handle the smaller collections. There seemed to be an true sensory connection where the children were emerged in exploration through a sensory lens. We recognized the direction that the children were going and shifted our 'plans' immediately. It was clearly not the time to begin any structured art/collage experience. We observed the children scooping up the fluffy seedlings and letting them drop and flow from their fingers; children touching pine cones and trying to stack them; children placing pine cones in size order and rolling sticks and branches and stacking the acorns were just a few of our observations.

On the day of our nature walk we happened to be passing an area in our Lower School playground where we noticed two broken window screens that had been left for trash. Ideas were hopping and we thought that the screen may be a wonderful ' canvas' for the art that we would eventually be creating. We were not sure, but certainly worth a try! We showed the screen to the children and we all decided to see if we could figure out a way to make this work.

We added the screen to the area and the children immediately started moving the materials to the screen ;spreading the fluffy seeds, stacking pine cones, piling bark and burying seeds. "Look, I made a nest! See, this acorn top is the egg" , exclaimed Hayden. The art/play shifted and children were now using twigs, seedlings and bark to make little nests all over the screen! The landscape of the screen was changing by the minute and the children were navigating skills necessary to work collaboratively and cooperatively and were working together so respectfully.

In the midst of the work on the screen, on e of the children discovered that the tops of the acorns could be wedged between the leaves of the pine cone and stick! Interest in using the pine cones as a base for sculpture was a new focus for a few and this continued until the work period ended.

The energy in the classroom surrounding this work was exciting! We all were slow to engage when we needed to clean up and prepare for lunch! As we cleaned up, the teachers commented, " I wonder what Andy Goldsworthy would be thinking if he were part of our PreK class today....