Family Day Care educators and children joined the Erindale Garden Scarecrow Festival.
As part of Erindale Community Garden’s recent annual Scarecrow event, children and family day care educators had fun planning and designing garden critter scarecrows. They brainstormed ideas about using recycled materials from home or from previous scarecrow projects.
What materials did they use?
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They made a spider from an old washing basket and used the legs from last year’s octopus scarecrow. To build the spider’s body, they used donated wool and ribbon. They also crafted lady beetles and bees from old plastic pots that they painted. For the beetle wings, they used plastic bowls with black dots, and the bee wings were repurposed from bees they made back in May during bee week.
Rebecca’s school-aged children pitched in by painting butterflies and caterpillars on her old plastic plates. |
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Sonia’s school-aged child, Skylah, created a caterpillar using an egg carton. Brooke experimented with mixing colors to create a unique blue for the spider’s eyes. And for millipedes, they recycled agricultural pipe and used pipe cleaners, stockings, foam balls, and stick-on eyes donated by Sonia.
During an outdoor playgroup session at the Arboretum vegetable garden, the children were inspired by the small, laminated butterflies throughout the garden. They liked the idea, so they coloured their own butterflies and dragonflies, placing them around the garden beds. |
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To add more fun to the event, both children and adults danced and sang along with the WATTS Ukulele singalong group. Church members even prepared morning tea bags for each child, which they all enjoyed together as a group after the singalong.
This whole adventure is helping the children connect with their world and explore new ways of being. They’re learning about different ways to contribute through play and projects, building on their social experiences. |