Creative Designs In Nature

Creativity, art and design are not just for the indoors!

Bringing the natural materials table outside and adding a reflective panel sparked a renewed creative feeling in the children. Moving familiar materials to a new space brings new meaning and vision to them.

Sketching Outdoors

Bringing sketch pads and clipboards filled with blank pages outside is a regular thing for us. A wagon is filled with writing materials and off we head to the great outdoors.

What we know is that outdoor sketching and drawing supports strong learning and brain development. The children look closer at their natural surroundings and notice so much more.

They inspect and re-inspect their drawings as they focus on certain details. They begin to strive for accuracy as they consider what they are looking at and how they are copying what they see.

The children reflect what they see...look back and forth...notice... reflection...pondering...considering...reflecting...

The children are becoming their own teachers.

Self-learners!



And so begins the journey of the life long learner.

"It's clouds illusions I recall...."

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way.

~ Joni Mitchell ~

A cloud study in pencil.

One of those days...when the sky is the kind of blue that is as brilliant as a bold idea. A picture perfect backdrop for the cottony clouds that freckled it. Their grandeur begged to be noticed. 'Look at me! Look at me!'

And so we did. And we were wowed!

Then, the sketch pads and sketch pencils came out.

Investigating Crystals

Brody was so excited when his ice experiment book went home that he came back to school and announced he just had to do another experiment. A scientist in the making? Maybe. A thinker that leads the way? Absolutely!

After discussing a few ideas, we decided on the making of salt crystals. "Whoa! Take a good picture of this one Mrs. Brent!"

Ingredients: Epsom salts, very warm water, food colour

Stir epsom salts until dissolved. Add a couple drops of food colour. We added some chenille sticks for the crystals to stick to.

Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Watch what happens when the water evaporates and the salt is left behind.

Some worked and some didn't. Why? 

"This one did real good. It got stirred enough."

"Maybe the other blue one needed more salt."

"It should've got stirred more."

More children wanted to experiment.

Kylynn studied the salt crystal on her finger and was ready to make some of her own.

 Addison wanted to touch the crystals. "They're cold."

Mrs. Brent asked, "I wonder if they're sharp?"

"Nope. I can break them."

Mrs. Brent asked, "I wonder if they'll melt?"

"Some are fuzzy and some are straight." 

Mrs. Brent said, "I think some look like cauliflower and some look like needles."

 These crystals need closer examination. 

Peyton and Mrs. Brent looked at crystal pictures on the computer. They saw a giant crystal cave! 

Wow! We can't wait for Brody's next experiment idea!