Artasia at RA Riddell
Today's Family Early Learning and Child Care
🖌️ Artist Educators: Wren Breeze, Kento Cady
Experiences at RA Riddell
We had a great outdoors week with flower pounding inspired by the work of Zorica Silverthorne! Wren and I split up and demonstrated together. My group marveled at the texture of the mordanted fabric. I said we were going to make a big tablecloth with one piece of fabric, and the other piece is yours to keep. A child asked what the kept fabric could be, and another piped up with a napkin! Or, a hat! Or, a soft towel. We thought about fabric ideas to inspire before we got to work. A child marveled at how folding the fabric over each other made two identical patterns. She gave me a piece and said the flowers represented Wren and I’s friendship- it was really sweet, since over the course of Artasia, Wren and I did become friends! We discovered new ways of pounding outside – not just with rocks, but with pinecones, rolling, stomping. Each way gave a different texture.The children who finished early heard others asking for colours- so, they went on an adventure to gather leaves and grass for everyone. It was really inspiring to observe how they interacted, shared, and hyped up each other’s work.Â
Experiences at RA Riddell
Another week, we created a class felt fruit salad inspired by the Dish With One Spoon wampum belt. The children were initially unfamiliar, but I used a resource from the Anishinabek Nation’s youtube to help explain the treaty of peace- how the Dish With One Spoon belt is not “a rights-based agenda, but a responsibility based friendship we have with each other” and the land. At first I went around with the bowl for everyone to add fruits to, but soon the children took the lead on walking around and mixing with everyone. I expected a kerfuffle on sharing, but opening with the Dish With One Spoon belt was super valuable. It was so lovely to see how they embraced sharing the one dish and taking turns “mixing” with the spoon. I was honestly nervous about sharing it among 30 kids, but I shouldn’t have been. Some students decided to add dressing to our fruit salad via “secret messages”- they would have me write messages like “I love you!” and “Everyone can share our salad”, then they would fold it up tight and sprinkle it in along with all of the various fruits in the salad. One child didn’t want to make fruit, but did want to make cars. I suggested his cars can be used to deliver the salad to everyone of our friends, and all of the kids responded with excitement on how his car would help everyone eat. We discussed how food gets to places- who takes food to the stores, and who makes them? We also discussed healthy eating and how different foods go together in flavour. A lot of it was positive. There was discussion on health – a child wanted to add chocolate, but another mentioned that was unhealthy for the salad. I mentioned that snacks like chocolate are okay in small amounts, so we decided to make super miniature felt ice creams and chocolate to represent that.
