7.22.2018

Homegrown Garden & Art Camp





























This is the third summer I've offered a weeklong Garden & Art camp at my home for girls Claire's age.  Many of the girls come each year and this year as they were arriving, I was thinking ahead and wondering if we'll keep this ball rolling into their adolescence, and wondering what that would look like.  I'd be honored to hold that space for them as they get older.  I suppose we'll just see how things unfold.

Considering that the first year I did this the group was 5-7 years old and now they are 7-9 years old, things have changed a bit.  In a way I saw it coming and I shifted my plans a touch- not bringing in other people to do projects as I have in the past, not planning quite as many projects for the week, planning instead on allowing there to be more open time for them to just........ be.  To just be together and play and get creative and muddy and wild and laugh deep full belly laughs and jump off of things and splash and squeal.  Watching them I felt like I was watching summer as it should be, and I loved it.

I still got materials for lots of great projects.  We made salve again, and indigo dyed (pillowcases this time).  We made bug spray and did some painting and embroidery.  Each girl made her own set of hand-dipped beeswax birthday candles to use at her next birthday celebration, and there was ample time in the garden learning about herbs and time wrangling and tending the chickens.  Within an hour of camp getting started on the first day one friend asked if we could please make jam again and when I told her the raspberries were already all done she didn't miss a beat and said "ok- well how about those cookies?"  Last year we made peanut butter cookies and raspberry jam and we maybe enjoyed them together by dipping the cookies into the sticky and still warm jam pot after all the jars were filled.  "Yes, we can for sure make cookies again", I said.


As they are now older and more capable and less squirrelly I felt comfortable taking them on a longer expedition and so one day we walked a ways to a trail and splashed and played and had lunch by the swimming hole and then walked back.  The walk back was not without complaints and it was not carried out at what I would call a fast pace.  It was more of a dragging, ambling......'shuffle' back.  At one point I was carrying four or five backpacks.  They really were such troopers and some of them were probably carrying two thirds of their own weight in wet towels and clothes and lunch stuff, so..... I carried.


One sweet girl who comes every year was recently asked "so what kind of camp is this that you go to?" and she replied "oh- we make jam and salve and stuff like that. It's a farming and earth camp."

I'm good with that.  In fact, I love it.



So here we are - year three of my little homespun, homegrown Garden & Art (or 'Farming & Earth') camp completed.  It just keeps getting better.  In fact, this year I've done a few days for the younger set (4-5 year olds), and I have a couple 'Mama Camp' days coming up as well.  I'm loving it all and excited about the possibilities herein for connection and fun and memory-making and all other sorts of goodness as well.  And this group of girls?  It is an honor and a joy to watch them just be together and enjoy summer, and I am thrilled to get to be a part of their childhood summer memories.







10 comments:

  1. I love this...and yes carry on, I'm sure they will always look forward to their annual Earth/Art/Girl's week.

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    1. thank you~ I am so looking forward to carrying on with them and seeing what sort of shift naturally happens over the years in terms of what we do with our time together, and what my role is, etc.

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  2. This is just the best thing ever. I'm going to email you with some questions if you don't mind! We are starting on a homeschool journey at our house and I am really getting a lot of inspiration from your blog, thank you!

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    1. aw, thank you! I SO enjoy it every year. You are more than welcome to reach out. I've tried to always tag my homeschool posts with 'homeschool' so they should be easily searchable in the word cloud on the left, but I am also very happy to email you as well :)

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  3. Can I come next year? LOL. What an amazing experience you have created for these girls. Keep it going!

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    1. Hi Kelly! I hope you are well~ yes, totally you should come crash the 8-10 year old girls' camp, that'd be awesome! I have actually started up a "mamas' camp" series here in town as well, so....... if you ever find yourself in Western NC........ ;)

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  4. This is so inspiring! Thank you so much for sharing! As a homeschooler myself who is always looking for inspiration, do you have any particular websites that you would recommend for art projects/creativity besides pinterest?

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    1. Hi Maggie! And thank you!
      Honestly, I don't- I get a bit of inspiration from pinterest and such from time to time but mostly it is just from years of teaching after school art classes and also modifying some simple homesteady sorts of things (candles, salve, jam, etc) for kids to do. I find certain art projects really lend themselves well to open-ended and easily personalized kid art- things such as embroidery, watercolors (here we first made designs with clear gel glue then watercolored over it once the glue dried and then removed the glue once all was dry), simple printmaking......

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  5. Amanda, I always enjoy your camp posts and this year's post is especially charming. Your ideas are magical. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. thank you so much, Terri!
      we have such a blast- I definitely look forward to this week every year.

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thanks for taking the time to read and comment~