Description
What a wonderful, exciting book! This is one of the best “activities with children” books I’ve ever been privileged to hold in my hands. Both the authors and publisher deserve a big “Thank you!” from all of us who care for children. The author’s experience as teachers at the Children’s Nature and Garden Centre in Reichshof just radiates off these pages!
Each and every activity suggested within this beautiful book forges a simply tie between those who do the projects and crafts and the world of nature. Here you have everything from harvesting fruits and vegetables, to building houses (including a chapter on house building in the Waldorf 3rd Grade!) to beeswax modeling. The authors exude such an enthusiasm that I think anyone who reads this book will want to get started on one of the crafts right away.
Most of the activities can easily be done within cities and towns, also — you very definitely don’t need to live in the country to create with autumn’s gifts. There are some, such as extracting honey, that do require knowing someone who works vocationally with nature (and are very much worth pursuing, if possible), but the overwhelming majority of activities are simple and easy to do with materials that are not difficult to come by unless you live in the desert.
I should also add that although autumn is the theme of the book, the activities given for late autumn can take you well into winter as well— they are very suitable for those days when we like to gather in our snug homes and make things.
Here’s what you’ll find in between the covers:
SEPTEMBER
- Harvesting fruit and vegetables
- Where do fruits and vegetables come from?
- Biodynamic Farms & the environment
- Natural wholefoods in the kindergarten
- Information and advice
- Eating together: A good influence
- Understanding how things are connected
- Training the senses
- Recipes for freshly-harvested fruit
- Drying fruit for the winter
OCTOBER
- Basket-making
- Plants used for basket-making
- Making a willow basket or hanging basket for flowers
- Weaving round or oval objects
- House-building
- Simple houses and huts
- Building: Putting down roots
- Imaginative structures: Large and small
- Building as an archetypal experience
- Building a house together: Developing social skills
- House-building in the third grade
- A dedication ceremony
NOVEMBER
- Caring for birds
- What we can do to protect birds
- Food for birds
- Working with Beeswax
- Modelingwith beeswax
- Beeswax: A precious material
- Dipping candles
- Related Activities
- Making paper
- History and production of paper
- Making paper with children
- Painting and handicrafts without toxic chemicals
- Paste and plaster
- Glue
- Finger-painting
- Sand pictures
- Nature mobile
- Pan pipes
- Castanets
- Pinwheels
