Art & Nature Classes

The art & nature class I did at our local library was a hit. I would have posted pictures but I think they got deleted some how. I will keep looking for them. This is the example my son did for the class. It's a Foxglove Flower.

The children had a great time. They were so excited to be drawing outside and investigating everything around them.
I provided clipboards, paper, pencils, magnifying glasses, oil pastels, and all the material to frame the finished pictures.

We started the class with discussing artist that were also naturalist. I set up books to give the parents and children ideas to read. They were biographies, craft ideas, outdoor projects to do with the whole family, how to draw and paint books.

I set up examples of leaves, flowers, and other nature items from outdoors. After the children looked at them on the table, we sat down and looked at each item up close. We looked at shape, texture, and color.

After passing out all the materials, we went outside and explored our environment. The kids looked at bugs, leaves, flowers, and cobwebs. We drew outside for about 40 minutes.

After we went in we pasted our pictures to construction paper, attached it to a wooden stick with satin ribbon. Their art work is now ready to hang.

My goal is to encourage more families to get outside and observe their environment around them. If we make a connection with our children to their environment then they will connect to it as adults and be future stwerards of our Earth. Statistic say that less and less children are going outdoors. This is so sad to hear.

Lets get the kids off the couch and into the outdoors.

HAVE FUN