Last week I did some wreath decorating with my children at home and at school with some of the children. Because I haven’t done wreath decorating before, I did take me a while to organise all the bits and pieces and figure out the easiest way of setting up this type of work for children under six years of age. I also wanted to make this collaborative art work as natural as possible. We had a Christmas wreath growing up but it was always made of plastic with plastic decorations.
In the above picture is of my ‘outdoor art‘ set up for some children to do outside their classroom, at my children’s school. We sat on a mat the children made under a lovely tree which gave us some much needed shade on a rather hot day. I ended up working with around sixteen children (2-3 children at a time), including my youngest aged between 3 and 5 years. The youngest children needed a little bit of extra help, whereas the older children were able to easily thread most items, cut what they needed (rattan or twine for example) with scissors and tie knots.
I didn’t take any photos during or after, not only to protect the children’s privacy but also because it was important to focus on being in the moment. I loved working with all of the children and I think they really enjoyed this work and were so excited to see how it turned out in the end. The wreath was hung up on the classroom door window which looked lovely.
If you are wondering what will happen to this wreath after Christmas- almost everything on the wreath will be re-used either by me or the school. Our wreath at home we plan on using it to decorate seasonally.
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