Making nature collages is a fun activity for children of all ages and abilities. It encourages creativity and helps develop fine motor skills.
All you need is some paper or recycled cardboard, We hate to waste anything and recycling and reusing materials is one of many small things we can all do to help the environment. So instead of chucking used cardboard boxes how about cutting them up into panels to use in crafts and activities.
First you need to draw a simple picture, pattern or even write a message onto the paper. it could be as basic as a stick figure, smiley face or a love heart. Or you could draw all types and kids of wildlife from birds and bees to tigers and elephants. Or how about drawing fairies, pirates, knights, dragons, robots or cars. The possibilities are as endless as your imagination.
Next collect as many natural objects as you can find around you for your collage. You could use leaves, stones, grass, bark, fallen fruit and flowers. *But pretty please don’t pick any wild flowers, only collect ones you have grown yourself or fallen ones you find on the floor.
Arrange the materials on top of your picture in any way you like. You could make a frame or a pattern on top of the picture. You could create a mini jungle for the Tiger or give a person grass hair and a leaf dress. We drew a simple bird and then make it a nest out of sticks and layered leaves over the top to make it look like it was in a tree, (above) and we also made a little underwater scene for our fish using pebbles and plants.
We talked about the different habitats of the animals we drew and thought about the different materials we could use to recreate them.
Its fun to explore the textures, shapes and colours of the materials you are using. It’s a good way to introduce children to new words and concepts and a perfect opportunity to talk about why natural things are different colours. For example flowers are brightly coloured to attract pollinators like bees and butterflies, grass and leaves are green because of the chlorophyll in the cells which is busy turning sunlight into food.
When you have finished you could glue your finished collage to the paper or take photos to print out so you can keep your art and enjoy it for longer. Or how about shaking everything off and starting again to make a completely different picture with different materials.
For Day 17 of 30 days wild we used simple pictures and natural materials from the garden to make some fun and interesting collages.
If you like this you might like to try:
Childsplayabc ~ Nature is our playground 
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