Monday, 26th October 2015

This year’s Wild Art course led by artist and Forest School practitioner Philippa Snell looks at the idea of building a new civilisation.

Starting from the idea that a tribe of tiny people – the Choo Choo tribe – are finding their dwellings destroyed by clumsy Wombles, we began making new places for them to inhabit.

Children experimented with building techniques to quickly make a dwelling in groups to see what existing skills they had.

Simple teepee structures were made by hammering sticks into the ground. Bark and ferns collected to make roofs and paths. Twigs used to make a frame. Leaves woven through twigs to make canopies.

We already had so many skills.

We discussed techniques used, who might live in each place and what their role may be in this new civilisation.

We then got more serious and were introduced to a number of new tools and techniques. We would use these to learn to build an iron age style round-house.

We learnt how to use tools safely, using a glove for protection and working closely with adults where necesary.

Loppers best used in pairs.
Secateurs with a glove.
Whittling needed a special body position and a glove – we always cut away from the body onto a wooden log.
Mallets were used to bang stakes into the ground.

Using all these techniques Philippa showed us how to make a basic round house structure by cutting sticks, banging them into the ground and weaving willow to make a wattle frame.