Land Art and a Garden Party - Stacey and Manuelle

We spent a wonderful morning at Norma Rose Point Elementary School running an outdoor lesson with some students! We had the opportunity to discover the rain garden they have in their school yard last week, knowing that we would come back to do an activity with a group of students from grades 1/2 and 6. After some great collaborative brainstorming, we settled on a land art lesson. We greeted the students in a grassy area between the rain garden and the edge of the Pacific Spirit forest, welcoming them to the space as Susan played a beautiful summer solstice song on her accordion (which many students were very curious about). Along with some brief introductions, Susan re-taught a song about the first summer day in a garden, which the students has already heard when the secondary CFE students came last month, and we grounded the group in the space with a rainstorm soundscape.  

We then read the first half of the beautifully illustrated book Be a Good Ancestor written by Leona and Gabrielle Prince and illustrated by Carla Joseph, which set us up perfectly to introduce the land art activity.

In small groups, mixing the younger and older students, the students created a piece of land art using materials found in the space. We talked to the students about harvesting materials that were already on the ground and supplementing their supplies with additional materials harvested honourably. We talked about only taking what we needed and thanking the plants and the trees for the materials they gave us permission to take. We let the students know that we would be leaving our art piece as an offering to the land. I think both the students and the teacher candidates had a great time throughout the morning! 

We spent the afternoon back at the Orchard Garden for a fun work party. It’s amazing to see the transformation of the spaces we’ve tended to over the last two weeks! We pruned the tomato and cucumber plants to give them space to grow, watered the garden, and cleared the garlic bed from so many weeds (a very satisfying job). We also harvested a bounty of raspberries and prepared some blackberry leaves in preparation for the Summer Solstice celebration next week.