Artasia at BGC Green Venture

EarlyON

📍 Green Venture, Hamilton
🖌️ Artist Educator: Katie Favell

Experiences at Green Venture

Due to the nature of the facility, Green Venture is completely an outdoor rain or shine event. Unfortunately, a tropical storm came through, and there was thunder and lightning, so my class was canceled. Fortunately, they were able to move the event indoors to Hillcrest Elementary School. Only one family with two children attended, so they were able to get all my attention. The older of the two children, a young boy, had fun tracing his hand as we talked about the differences between his hand and my hand. He used glue to make a fabric collage on the front of his badge. The little girl who was 16 months old used the pile of fabric as a sensory experience. We allowed her to feel the different fabrics and play with them. It was an idea that the ECE wanted to implement in her classroom, where the waterbin had a leak in it. She was going to fill it with fabric and allow the children to feel and cut the scraps.

The collaboration was a great idea that will be available to all the children going forward.

At Green Venture, the educator and I picked a spot on the ground to spread the large sheet. I wrote in the fabric markers “Welcome to Green Venture” and spread the markers, bingo dabbers, fabric, and glue for the fabric.

The children that attend Green Venture are very young. Most of them are under 3. There will be an odd child older if they are accompanying a younger sibling. By allowing the children the freedom to choose what they wish to use, I have found more engagement with the kids. Whatever they choose, I ask the child, “Why did you choose that?” And I will ask more leading questions if the child has a limited vocabulary, such as “do you like the colour red? What else is red?”

The parents helped to put paint on the children’s hands and make handprints on the banner. The children liked the feel of the paint, and many would come back again and again to have their parents paint their hands. (See photo of a small child comparing their hand to the handprint they previously made.) The large banner was hung up along a wall in Green Venture, and the children gathered around to see it hung. The banner was very much appreciated!

Katie Favell

Experiences at Green Venture Continued

Green Venture is a beautiful outdoor location, and this week for flower pounding, I wanted to use the locations garden. I would explain the activity to the family and allow the children to go on a “treasure hunt” to find pretty colours and textures on the ground. We found that ferns made beautiful shapes, while yellow fallen leaves (fall is early this year!), made a pretty orange colour. At the location, there is a large walnut tree. Walnuts, when peeled from the outside rind, make a yellowish brown colour stamp. The children were able to use the walnut as a stamp instead of squishing it. The parents were very involved in the activity. Many wanted to know if they could make their own square. I tried to include the parents from then on in.

We were creating wearable art this week. Using beads, plastic bottles, and pipe cleaners, the little ones were able to practice threading beads and weaving to make bracelets. One mother used fabric to make roses for a headband. Another mother harvested vines from the environment to create a woven fairy headband. A very young child helped put buttons on pipe cleaners, which the mother then transformed into an alien antenna headband.

The children learned basic weaving skills. By helping the child pay attention to where the holes were on the bead, they were able to learn to thread their own. This helped create more independence in younger children.

This last week at Green Venture was very windy. I had to adapt programming at the last minute to match the weather conditions. We were going to be using precut food shapes on our construction paper plates. However, the wind was too strong, and everything kept blowing away. Instead, I gave the children markers and had them draw their favourite foods. Most of the children were very young and could only trace shapes or draw squiggles. So we worked on talking about what they liked to eat and when was their favourite time to eat it. The older children drew their food on their plates and talked about what they liked to eat for breakfast. It seemed that breakfast was a favourite meal for them during the day!

Katie Favell