Our day started by taking a walk together to gather materials to use over the next few days. Tomorrow we are going to weave baskets from a bunch of materials, so we stripped leaves off English Ivy and cut back some long grass outside. Viv knew how to braid together the ivy stems, and she showed everyone how to do that! Next, we sorted some flowers that we got from a florist, and tried arranging them in a flower press. We are looking forward to seeing how that turns out!
The big thing for the morning was making key chains with a Macrame technique. It was interesting to talk about how fishermen and sailors use this practice in their everyday lives. When we were finished we could color them with dye we extracted from all kinds of natural substances such as red cabbage, turmeric, or beet root. We saw how adding acids or bases could change the color sometimes. It was like chemistry and biology class, but fun! After lunch we made luminaries, where we put flowers or colored paper on the outside of a jar. In the inside of the jar we’ll put a little candle that you can light up and then the flowers will shine on the outside.