My girls love art. They also love getting messy outside. Put the two together and they are in their element!

I don’t like to prescribe what they do in terms of their learning. We are not completely ‘unschooling’ but I do like them to have choice and ownership over their learning – this can lead to chaos with art!

It was lovely and sunny yesterday afternoon and we’d decided we needed a quiet day at home following our ‘adventure’ the previous day. Poppet and Pickle wanted an outdoor activity so I sent them down the garden to collect leaves – mean Mummy I hear you say! They happily took to their task while I settled Piccalilli for a nap. By the time I joined them they looked like two little gardeners, with rakes in hand and a huge pile of rainbow coloured leaves.

Let the artwork commence…

They decided to make a Space scene (as that’s what they had chosen for their topic this month). “Let’s make black holes”, said Poppet, so they busily created ‘green holes’ (as Pickle renamed them!)

They asked my advice and opinion; we discussed colours and patterns; I enjoyed watching them buzzing around the garden looking for the correct colour of leaf… but essentially they made their own creations. They reminded me of the art of Andy Goldsworthy and I felt very proud!

Today they disappeared off down the garden with the memory of yesterday’s successes in all of our minds…

An hour later they returned… covered in mud! And I mean covered, clothes and all! No art had been created, but a big, muddy hole had appeared and two little girls joyfully jumped into a warm, bubbly bath!