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9780711228856

Make it Wild! 101 Things to Make and Do Outdoors

by ;
  • ISBN13:

    9780711228856

  • ISBN10:

    071122885X

  • Edition: 1st
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2010-05-25
  • Publisher: Frances Lincoln
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Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

Summary

Following Nature's Playground and Going Wild, the authors once again lure kids away from computers and the TV into the natural world, this time to have a go at making their own entertainment from whatever is available outdoors.This book is about looking at natural materials in a new light and discovering how they can be used creatively. It shows children from eight upwards, including teenagers - and their parents - how to make anything from a cricket bat to an ice lantern, and enjoy expeditions, games and parties outdoors - all with the emphasis firmly on fun. From making things that fly to playing hay bale games, fashioning monsters from wet clay to trying stone jenga, creating living willow sculptures to making natural jewellery, the book helps youngsters to open their eyes and use their imaginations, and to discover the wonder and value of natural materials.

Author Biography

Fiona Danks did a degree in Ecology at Edinburgh University followed by a PGCE in Rural and Environmental Science at Bath College of Higher Education. She worked in environmental education for a number of years, first for the Shropshire Wildlife Trust and then for the Berkshire Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, organizing training for teachers and taking groups of children out to nature reserves and other wild sites. She then went on to write books about the Chiltern Hills and the Cotswold Hills while working part-time running activities in a pre-school nursery. She currently runs the Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment, a non-profit making company providing grants for a wide range of community and environmental projects across Oxfordshire. Fiona lives in Watlington in Oxfordshire. Through their website www.goingwild.net Jo and Fiona provide more ideas for outdoor activities and an opportunity for debate on the importance of real world adventures for all young people.

For more information on how to encourage children to go outdoors, visit Fiona and Jo's website click here

Jo Schofield gained a degree in psychology from Exeter University and began her career working for an educational psychologist in London. After getting involved in the production of a film, she went on to work in the creative department of a TV advertising agency where she began taking still photographs. This led on to her becoming a commercial photographer in Australia and then London. She worked mainly for national editorial magazines such as Country Living. When her children were small she worked in Watlington Primary School and the Dragon school in Oxford, applying her creative knowledge to the classroom with children aged 6-9 years. More recently she has been focusing on writing and photographing for a series of books with co-author Fiona Danks. Jo lives near Watlington in Oxfordshire. Through their website www.goingwild.net Jo and Fiona provide more ideas for outdoor activities and an opportunity for debate on the importance of real world adventures for all young people.

For more information on how to encourage children to go outdoors, visit Jo and Fiona's website click here

Table of Contents

Ephemeral art

Beach art

Woodland art

Ice and snow



Outdoor toys

Wooden go-carts

Cricket and rounders bats

Boats and rafts 56

Planes and gliders

Kites

Flaming balloons



Make it from clay

Working with wild clay

Decorative tiles

Pinch pots

Sculptures

Firing clay

Smoke decorating



Make it from wood

Rustic furniture

Driftwood sculptures

Twig sculpture

Wild baskets

Withy lanterns



Nature's pigments

Natural paints

Natural dyes



Natural crafts

Jewellery

Paper making

Leaf plates and bowls

Pewter casting

Felting

Making a leather purse

Natural mobiles and windchimes



Further information

Index

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Excerpts

Anyone wanting a quiet walk on that blustery autumn afternoon would have been in for a bit of a shock.

The woods rang out with the excited shrieks and crazy laughter of five elaborately decorated young warriors. Armed with sticks, they were ready to defend their territory to the bitter end and alarm innocent passers by with their scary painted faces. This was a real adventure, an escape into a world of stories and dreams, all made possible by a bit of crushed chalk.



Only an hour earlier those same young people had been sprawled in front of the television, squabbling over the computer and refusing to budge off the sofa. How could we ever tempt them away and channel all that pent-up energy into something positive? We grabbed a pestle and mortar, a few paintbrushes and a bottle of water, and dragged everybody off to the woods. We easily gathered some chalk from upturned tree roots and before long everyone was bashing and grinding it into a fine powder, and then mixing it into a smooth white paste with a little water. Stripping off their T-shirts - no one complained about the cold - the children decorated their faces, arms and even bodies with intricate patterns and pictures inspired by Aboriginal designs. With no further prompting they had become transformed into imaginary characters and were dashing off into the woods. A rather dull half-term afternoon had become a memorable experience.



We believe in letting the wild world weave its magic on young people. Wild places have a unique capacity to release a sense of adventure, stimulate imaginations, unleash creativity and restore a sense of wonder. Our families have wiled away many hours in local woods, distant mountains and back gardens. We have invented games, made weird and wonderful sculptures, raced miniature leaf boats down streams and collected natural treasures to turn into keepsakes. Make it Wild draws on these experiences, with the aim of inspiring young people to get off their backsides, forget about their image, leave commercial toys and games behind for a while and go in search of some inexpensive entertainment in the great outdoors.



The wild world is packed to the brim with endless possibilities for play, creativity and discovery. After a two-hour walk to a remote Hebridean beach where there wasn't a plastic beach toy or electronic game in sight, everyone was forced to search around for something to do. Sitting idly trickling dry sand between her fingers, Hannah began to experiment. Placing one hand down flat on the smooth damp sand, she poured dry sand all around it and revealed, when she lifted up her hand, a perfect silhouette. Soon everyone joined in, producing a scene reminiscent of ancient cave paintings created by spitting mouthfuls of paint around hands placed on the rock walls. Suddenly that wild and empty beach had become a place full of exciting new ideas. In this fast-moving, quick-fix modern world of over-packaged, branded toys, in which many children expect to have their needs met immediately, nature helps us all slow down a little and realize that less is often more.



Make it Wild is about looking at what nature has to offer in a new light. It's about appreciating the potential of diverse raw materials such as snow, leaves, chalk and sticks and learning how to work with them. It's about discovering how to use nature's free, renewable resources to make anything from a cricket bat or a clay monster to an ice lantern or costumes for an outdoor play. (And for those parents and carers who shudder at the thought of messy craft activities in their tidy house - take heart, and just get everyone outdoors! Connie and Sophie knew they could slop this elderberry juice around as much as they liked because outdoors is the perfect place to be messy!)



Such activities may take a long time, and they may be difficult; but we have found that young people value the finished products all the more for having made them themselves and feel a sense of pride in the achievement. Outdoor crafts can also show children that technology is not just about pressing the keys on a keyboard but can be about making something that is practical and useful, like a home-made go-cart on which you can whizz downhill or a carved wooden spoon that you can cook with. They bring young people closer to nature and some, like the spoon, have ancient and primitive origins too.



Outdoor experiences also offer young people time and space for exploration, for learning by mistakes and for working together. Making things outdoors involves solving practical problems, seeing a process through from start to finish, using potentially dangerous tools - all of which help children acquire the skills they need to cope with the world and develop a common-sense understanding of the way it works. Group activities such as a family boat-making competition or gathering round a fire telling scary stories can take them away from the solitary virtual world of networking and surfing and help nurture real connections with family and friends.



We believe that everyone has buried desires to reconnect with nature and discover wildness; and we know from experience that once young people are out there they will come up with all sorts of ingenious ideas and have a great time. But the hardest part is getting them out of the door. How do you tempt young people to get outside? One solution, we have found, is to remove barriers - by making time for outdoor play and putting it higher up the priority list. Another lies in making experiences in the natural world as exciting, challenging, varied and inspiring as possible. In Make it Wild we offer diverse ways to do this, in the hope that it might make it easier to encourage children to get outdoors and have fun.



Of course today's young people must grow up with an understanding and appreciation of modern technology, but an ever-increasing reliance on multi-channel TV and computers encourages passive indoor lifestyles. A downside of a culture that bombards us with commercial messages promoting the acquisition of the latest toys, fashions and gadgets is that it suggests that happiness depends on these things; and it is a wasteful one too, where the art of making things is in danger of being lost. We hope that Make it Wild will redress the balance and help reunite young people with the natural world in all its vitality, its freedom, its opportunities, its intensity and its inspiration. Perhaps it will encourage everyone to discover their inner wildness. We hope that it might also help the next generation develop valuable life skills and forge a deeper link with wild places, for if they come to value everything that such places have to offer they will surely want to protect them for future generations.

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