Arts and Crafts Activities

Age: 4-10

Resources needed: paper, colouring tools

Activity: Go to a spot outdoors that you really enjoy going to, or discover a new spot that you have not been before. Find something interesting in nature such as a part of a tree, stones, sand, flowers, etc. Study the feature and draw a picture of it while sitting outside in front of your object.

Extension: take the photo to a friend or family member and have them guess where you found your object.

Ages: All

Resources needed: permanent marker, paint, paint brushes, rocks to paint that can be found at your local river or beach

Activity: walk to the beach or a creek near your house and find 4-5 rocks. Bring the rocks home and paint them all grey. Once the paint dried, use white paint to paint eyes, and orange paint to pant a beak. Once the paint dries, outline the beak and eyes with permanent marker. Now you have yourself a family of owls!

Ages: All

Resources needed: a camera or your phone

Activity: take pictures of nature and send them to to Mulgrave Outdoor Education team! We will announce weekly winners. To share your photo please send tag @MulgraveOE on your photo on Instagram., or email it to outdoored@mulgrave.com. We look forward to seeing your submissions.

Ages: All

Resources needed: paint, paint brushes, rocks to paint that can be found at your local river or beach (make sure that you can carry them home/back to the car!)

Activity: Collect rocks that are have no life (barnacles, seaweed, etc) living on them. When you get home, wash and dry the rocks. It’s time to paint then whatever way you wish! You may want to paint them multiple colours, or paint inspirations quotes on the rocks. If you are doing this activity with younger children, we recommend that you complete it outside (we laid a tarp down on our deck with our 2 year old!).

The completed rocks can be for the “garden gnomes” and placed in your garden, or you may choose to keep a rock with an inspirational quote in your bedroom.

Ages: All

Resources needed: Any non-living natural objects that you can find outside such as rocks, leaves, pine cones, etc.

Activity: Andy Goldsworthy is known for creating art pieces out of the natural environment. Andy Goldsworthy will create art pieces in nature, take a picture of it, and then put all the pieces back. For this activity please use items that are not living. Here are some examples of his work and student work that was inspired by him. We hope you have fun creating your own art pieces.

Ages: All

Resources needed: Paper, drawing materials (pencils, pencil crayons, etc.)

Activity: Gather your drawing materials and walk through this video series for step to step tutorial on how to sketch birds. The accompanying Sketching Birds handout is useful to use in addition to the video tutorials. For more ideas of types of birds to draw, see the Merlin Bird ID app.

For an extra challenge, try to sketch the birds that you see in your neighbourhood - you can take a photo of the birds while out on your walk and sketch them when you get home as an easier modification.!

Ages: All

Resources needed: rocks of all shapes and sizes, a stable surface. These can be found by going to your local river, beach or forest and finding rocks that do not have anything living on them.

Activity: Once you have your collection of rocks, its times to create a cairn or an inukshuk! This link demonstrates the wide range in cairns structures that can be made by stacking rocks. Inukshuks are like caines, except they are made to look like humans. You may want to stack rocks together to look like a human, or create your own design. The completed structure can be placed in a garden outside a home, or you can take a picture of it before knocking it over.

A family challenge can be done to see who can make the tallest rock structure!

Ages: 3-12

Resources needed: items could include sticks, rocks, flowers, a basket, glue, baskets, small dollhouse items, paint, dollhouse furniture or other items to add to your fairy house.

Activity: While outside, search for items to build a fairy house with and look for the perfect spot to place your fairy house. There is a wide range of methods and designs you can use to build your fairy house, let your imagination wander! See this link for example fairy houses.

Ages: All

Resources needed: toys/different objects of odd shapes/sizes, pencils, paper, pencil crayons/paint/crayons

Activity: It’s time to have fun shadows and enjoying the sunny weather we have been having this spring! Place the toys along one edge of the paper, making sure the subjects are in the sun and casting a shadow on the piece of paper. Now, trace the shadow and colour in the image that you traced.

Ages: All

Resources Needed: colouring print outs from Sea Legacy, felts/crayons/pencil crayons

Activity: Download any or all of the images and colour some of Paul and Cristina's most memorable images – a great way to combine art with exploration. On the website it also gives details about the species found in each image so that you can learn about the ocean species at the same time as colouring them!

Age: 3-10

Resources needed: leaf that have fallen on the ground, white paper, crayons or pastels

Activity: collect leaves from your yard of various shapes and sizes. It does not matter if the leaves are fresh or dried. Place a leaf on the counter with the bottom side of the leaf facing upwards. Place your piece of paper on top. Rub the side of the crayon or oil pastel over the leaf. Continue until you've rubbed over the whole leaf. Remove the leaf from under the paper and repeat the activity with as many leaves as you would like.

Ages: 12+ (or help from an adult if younger)

Resources needed: pencil, two sticks 90cm in length, one slightly thicker than the other, tissue paper, string, small saw

Activity: The task at hand is to build a kite using only natural materials. For pictures and detailed instructions on how to do so, please see this website.