A Sense of Wonder

The playful sheep had me captivated by their curiosity and friendliness, not to mention their beauty. They transported me back to Scotland, my homeland. Reminding me of happy days in Perthshire where the sheep would frequently wander into our back garden. During lambing season our children would help to bottle feed lambs, a most joy filled experience, one of love and compassion. Our children learned a lot about themselves and the surrounding land growing up in the Scottish countryside. Early on, our children formed loving, lasting relationships with the natural world and it’s inhabitants

Joy-filled Learning

Through my nature based art classes I wish my students, both children and adults to learn more about themselves and the natural environment through playful art processes and soulful nature based art activities.

Nature art is certainly more challenging online than in person. Back in 2019 I closed my outdoor classroom and decided to concentrate on providing online content, inspiration and support for educators and parents. I did however continue to provide online (one to one) nature art classes each week for a very special little girl, Elise. Elise suffers from a very rare neurological disorder, Subcortical Band Heterotopia or (double cortex), Autism and Epilepsy. Nature Art helps nurture her body, mind, heart and spirit, providing a well-needed balance in her life; gifting great joy; building her confidence and a better understanding of who she is while developing her own unique art style.. Her love of the natural world and its inhabitants can be felt in her soulful artwork.

Love and Compassion

I knew as soon as I saw the sheep Elise would also be captivated and inspired to get creative. I returned to the farm the next day to video the sheep so Elise could observe them unclose and thought about what we could explore together.

Staying Warm During Winter
Keeping warm outdoors during these cold winter months in BC involves wearing appropriate clothing. Woollen hats, jumpers and scarfs are made from wool - gifted to us by the sheep. What a great starting point for our creative explorations. I have invited Elise to look out all her woollen hats, jumpers and scarfs and choose a few of her favourites that we can explore the patterns and shapes. I can’t wait to see her selection of woollies.

This will lead us onto asking how the hats and jumpers are made. Another wonderful journey to explore. The fascinating story of WOOL.

Using hat and jumper patterns as inspiration Both my colourful woollen hat and cardigan that I am using as my inspiration here, were purchased many years ago from a small artisan shop in Edinburgh, my home city, handmade by local artists.

More stories will be unravelled as we investigate the history of the knitted jumper both here in BC where the Cowichan knitting is a traditional knitting form developed by the First Nation people of the Cowichan Valley. While back in Scotland we learn about the beautiful Fair Isle and Shetland knitting patterns, and with the older students we will also explore sheep in Norway, Iceland, Australia, NewZealand and Argentina. Each country with their very own unique history and stories..…how fascinating!!!!

Playful Process Focused Art Experiences

Play is the beginning of everything. Elise will play with the wool, explore textures, colours and patterns. What happens if you pull on the wool, wrap it around other natural materials. What might happen if it gets wet or add natural inks to the wool. Offering multi sensory experiences.

These Process Focused Art Experiences help to form a relationship with the natural materials we explore.

IMAGINATION

Then an invitation to create sheep sculptures - what materials might we use? Snow is our starting point outdoors. Indoors we will start with clay. What else can we use?

Elise loves to create sculptures and figurines capturing the essence of the animal, bird or insect she has encountered. Her sculptures become her friends and her imaginations takes her on magical, playful adventures indoors and outdoors. This imaginative play leads organically into storytelling with our little sculptures both orally and illustrated. And so, as we flow hrough our learning journey, one creative adventure leads on to another.

Depending on the ages of your students you can expand on their learning experiences by delving deeper into the history of sheep and wool. Delve deeper into the stories and create your very own. The possibilities of joy filled learning are infinite when you put your imagination to work. Learning should be fun!!!

We can also learn to be a little more sustainable along the way

Have you noticed nothing is ever wasted in nature. We have become a throw away society. Socks never get repaired. One quick call to Amazon and the new socks are delivered within 48 hours (by some driver under enormous pressure to delver on time). We are so wasteful. We can look at repairing our socks, we could learn to knit. We could use old socks to make hand puppets. We can recycle old jumpers. Ask your older students how might they as individuals be more sustainable, how might our community be less wasteful.

Heart to heart soul to soul

Nature has an amazing way of knowing what you need. My time with the sheep gifted immense joy, evoked happy memories of past and oodles of inspiration for creative explorations with my students young and old.

Grateful for this sacred time with the sheep - their gentleness touched my heart and their soul whispered to mine - heart to heart - soul to soul

What a beautiful soul Don’t you think it looks like the sheep is fashioning a hat and jumper!

Let it be joyfiilled learning

More than ever, children need to have plenty of opportunities to express themselves and experience JOY, feel LOVED and NURTURED. Combing nature and art help to nurture the whole child, body, mind, heart and spirit. These playful, soulful experiences help the children discover more about themselves, offering some peace, harmony and balance back into their lives.

If you would like to learn more leave me a message or drop me an email, I would love to share this sacred journey of joyfilled learning with you.

Wishing you all a beautiful and creative week, love and gratitude Marghanita x

Featured posts:

Storytelling with Nature - Sheep