This week saw some excellent creativity where children were supported to see how we could make a usable watercolour paint using petals from our beautiful wildflower beds and plant pots. We even used a ginormous beetroot from the vegetable bed! Whilst we have a “no picking” rule, our Wandsworth team of educators share the consensus that, in abundance, plants can be used if it helps us to do something good. Around this area of understanding the world, we are able to have early discussions about how plants are involved in all aspects of our lives like food, clothes, medicine or building materials as a few examples.
In this activity we first used the wilted purple petunia flowers which created a dark blue when crushed with a stick and mixed with small measurements of water. Next, we used yellow sunflower petals and the blue cornflowers too. We extended this activity from last week by introducing how baking soda or lemon juice can be used to make the pigment darker or lighter or in fact change it entirely! Children loved how the yellow petal paint turned a bright red with the baking soda, and how the dark blue petunia mix went a vivid turquoise with a few drops of lemon juice.
These paints were then used to wash over paper that had secret images hidden within using white crayon, so the children could find smiley faces, hearts, their names, letters and numbers.
We also used these natural dyes to create flags and windsocks for our bowling field. This was achieved by giving children from both teams an opportunity to squirt the natural paint onto a large stretch of white fabric. Lemon and baking soda mixes were squirted in too which intensified the vivacity and added even more fun to the mix!
We are coming to a period in the seasons where the last of our wildflowers are displaying their loveliness, and children have been helped to identify that there are now seeds we can harvest to sow again next year. Next week we plan to make some little paper bags so we can save these seeds for next year and hopefully we can get some mixes out to you too, to scatter around at home or anywhere you feel needs brightening up!
We hope this weekend sees some of the sun we have been experiencing this week for you all to enjoy, and we’re looking forward to hearing about your adventures soon!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth