Family Permaculture lesson ideas:
To be developed into lesson plans
People: self care
- Thich Nhat Hanh pebble meditation
- Meditations from 'Relax kids' book
- Natural craft and imagination enhancing activities:
- Clay and stick creatures
- Puppet making and magical creatures
- Willow weaving
- Earth loom weaving
- Natural dying
- Felting
- Story stick making
- Many more from kids art resource books, so long as they fit with and enhance the ethics of permaculture
- Storytelling
People: community building
- Working together to make story pictures on the ground out of natural and found materials
- Earth loom weaving
- Interactive games that initiate co-operation not competition
- N.V.C. practice for children and families (From Marshall Rosenburg)
- Theatre and storytelling in a group
- Group singing and chanting
- Gratitude and blessings at meal times
Gardening skills
- Making seed bombs together
- Many activities in Roots Shoots Buckets and Boots book
- Many activities for young children in Gardening with Young Children
Food
- Wild foraging, and then making juice/cordial/tonics/cakes/other recipes
- Use Neals Yard, Natures children and Evies kitchen books to prepare meals both with the children and for the children
- Making pickles and jams -kombucha and kimchee for older children
- Forage and identify from the garden, pick and prepare (to strengthen association of where food comes from)
- Mushroom harvesting
- Drying apple rings and other seasonal fruit
Natural environment
- Natural dying and felting
- Role play theatre games of the science of soil, water and air
- Using our bodies and natural objects to make patterns we see in nature
- Treasure hunt/bingo to find specific patterns in nature, from pre-made cards of patterns
- Finding natural pigments and body painting
- Make a bird feeder
- Making bird, bee and bug houses.
Built environment
- Building from sticks, stones, clay, string
- Sandpit modelling, with water added to create river/pond etc
- Tree houses/fairy houses (depending on age, time, and ability)
- Building a wormery
- Cardboard box castles
- Cob building, small scale (eg fairy house) or together with adults
- Develop ideas for house (from drawings, story, etc) for magical/fictional creature, and build
- Make a den/shelter and use the space for story's and feasts..
- Building a giant birds nest
- Making a waterwheel
Observation skills
- Observing our bird, bee or bug house over the length of the course. recording on a large chart what we see and how often.
- Animal tracking
- Treasure hunts
- Owl eyes and sit spots
- Making sun dials
- Tracking sun and moon in other ways
- Looking for patterns in nature
- Pond dipping - identifying insects and animals
- Collect snails/caterpillars/insects/frogspawn on first day and record them over the course
- Tracking with sticks (from Stick book)
- Butterfly/bird making in 3D - to hang on string, and flutter.. make realistic from pictures
- Mandala making - with natural objects and with natural paints
- Observing and identifying animal poo
- Many other ideas from Run Wild book
Reading the landscape
- Mapping, with toy farm animals and 3D materials/ lego/playdough
- Mapping the garden through drawing and physical interaction, with strings, ribbons, chalks etc
- Tracking the flow of water - waterwheels, dams and canal making
- Tracking the sun through making a sundial
- Measuring by pacing
Design skills
- Inputs and outputs games for animals/children
- Sandpit modelling of potential garden site - using animals and toys to create the scene.. adding water
- 3D model making, creating an ideal home/neighbourhood/school layout, can build in paper and/or recycled materials
- Sector games - using different coloured flags children can dress up as sun and wind and find their places and run around after identifying where they flow in the garden
- Introducing mind maps
- Zone ID - home, school etc.. drawing out together
- Digging swales
Trees
- Tree ID, from found leaves/bark/seeds, and ID cards
- Identify birds and insects that like each specific tree, make them a bird/bug box
- Story of The man who planted trees - can also be in puppets
- Create a woodland log book - catalogue things seen in the forest
Appropriate technology
- Water power - building water wheels
- See saw power - develop lesson ideas?
- Bicycle power - develop lesson ideas?
- Wormery and composting
- Candle making
- Lantern making
- Cob oven building (with adults)
- Many more ideas in Earth, water, fire and air book