Outdoor Play Party - Outdoor Art - Part 2.

The finished sea scape and beach scene!

Over the past few months the nursery class has created lots of outdoor art, mostly for Bear Woods, our little wooded/wild area above the nursery.

In February thanks to funding from the Integrated Education Fund, we were able to work with our partner school, Sperrinview and professional artist, Grainne Kielty,  to create clay footprints for the fence up in Bear Woods.

All 40 children involved in the project made a print of their welly boot or shoe in clay and then after they were painted and glazed our caretaker was good enough to display them along the fence.

Then I also applied for funding from The Play Resource in Belfast to allow the children to work with another professional artist, Fionnuala Duffin. I sent her some photos of the fence up in Bear Woods and Fionnuala came up with a greta idea to help decorate the fence with some weaving. However, not just any old weaving the children created a beach scene over 3 days by weaving strips of different coloured and textured materials into the fence.

They also made some jelly fish from recycled plastic containers and fish from old CDs. These were tied along the fence and placed between the plastic sections of the fence in the 'sea'!
They also made a big octopus and snail to go live outdoors in this space too.

I think it has really brightened up the space and allowed the children to see how they can use existing things like the fence to create art work. 

My favourite post from the last link up was by Small Wonders on their outdoor kitchen - sometimes simple really is best & the photos in this post perfectly illustrate how children don't need a lot fancy resources to have a fun time outdoors.

"Now it’s time for this week’s Outdoor Play Party. We would appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back. Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured.(If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured at’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!"

An InLinkz Link-up