For a peaceful home, for a peaceful world
Sewing beads onto material with thread. Frida loved doing this today. This was absolutely process art: there was no outcome in mind, just some exploration using two materials she knows well (sewing materials and threading beads) in a new way. After she had finished she wanted to display her finished piece next to some of…
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I mentioned recently that I feel like Frida has had a developmental shift lately. As part of this, she’s much more interested in art materials. Colouring, cutting, using playdough, sewing – these are all things she is choosing to work on regularly at the moment. For now, we are taking an unstructured approach to Frida’s…
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Welcome to the second instalment of the Frida Be Mighty gift guide! Here is a selection of art and crafts materials that I am sure children would be delighted to receive and will enjoy all year round. It’s not an exhaustive list but I hope it will give you some ideas. A note before we…
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We have recently started using the Exploring Nature With Children curriculum. It’s a brilliant resource with weekly nature walk inspiration, extension activity ideas, and a list of secondary materials including poems, art works, fiction and non-fiction book lists, and classification information. We are unlikely to follow it strictly every week, but it’s a brilliant source…
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I recently wrote about how I discuss art with Frida, and about our habit of looking at one painting a day and talking about it. I don’t choose which painting we look at, I just pick the next one in the pack, and today it was “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande…
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Talking about art with young children is a wonderful thing to do. Not only does it encourage critical thinking, understanding of others and the world around us, observation, and expressing emotions and feelings, but it is simply joyful to spend time discussing something beautiful together. Time and again at the moment, I keep coming back…
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Art is an important part of our daily rhythm at the moment, with Frida choosing to work with her paints, pencils, crayons and modelling clay most days – sometimes more than once. She has free access to paints, water, pencils, crayons, paper, and felt tips (you can see our current set up here), and tends…
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“We spread an abundant and delicate feast… and each small guest assimilates what he can.” – Charlotte Mason Charlotte Mason was writing here about the need to provide our children with a rich, diverse, interesting, tempting, beautiful education. An education which invites them to consume diverse ideas and stories and concepts, tempting them in with…
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We have recently introduced Frida to modelling clay! I have such fond memories of using modelling clay (I think we called it plasticine?) as a child, and so was really looking forward to getting some out to use with Frida. Although I could have made a batch of playdough and mixed up all different colours,…
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Every week I try and take Frida somewhere a bit different, as a change from our local parks and playgrounds and cafes. It could be as simple as going to a city farm, or visiting family in another town, or making the most of London’s many world-class museums and galleries, most of which are free.…
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