Feeling warm temperatures on our skin, watching flowers bloom and hearing birds sing, we welcome Spring inside and outside of school these days.
And speaking of birds, Miss Maria inspired our art today by bringing in an abandoned birds’ nest from her yard. Left on the table for study, the children marveled at the materials used by the birds in making the nest: sticks, weeds, plastic bits, even (ironically) a plastic flower. So, as it happens in the atelier, we began making our own birds nests using different materials that we thought mimicked those the birds used.
One child used Wiki Stix to build a nest…and then place a “dolphin bird” in it:
We also explored molding a burlap scrap over a bowl. The child working on this project sewed bits of yarn into the burlap to make it more nest looking, then added bits from our tinker bins to it. We mod podged it together and used clothes pins to shape it. It will be interesting to see what kind of bird will be made tomorrow to live in this nest!
And because it was a beautiful Spring morning, we had to go out and feed the birds as well. Using the leftover halves of lemons and oranges that had been hollowed out, we filled them with bird seed and hung them from our favorite tree.
And also because the children must always be allowed to follow their bliss in the art room too, we painted some beautiful things just for the sheer joy of it!
—Miss Lori, Atelierista
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