Summerfield Stables Workshop 2

S is for Survival

Make dens or houses for animals to survive; use the materials you foraged the previous week. This can be done in groups or alone. Think about what kind of creature, real or imaginary, would live or find shelter in the house you've created.

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The kid's responses

We asked the kids to use the materials they had collected during the previous workshop to build houses/shelters for creatures, real or imaginary, that they thought might live in them. Most of the kids broke off into pairs, with some choosing to build their houses alone.

Some of the kids needed some help staying focussed at first but, once they started talking about what kinds of creatures they were building the structures for, they soon got into it and let their imagination lead them.

The above building was built by two of the kids who wanted to build a house for fairies. They used an existing tree stump as the base but then used different types of string and rope found around the stables for the roof, with bubble wrap completing it. As well as the house, they also visualised and built the garden areas- using a piece of carpet as an entrance and water bottle lids for swimming pools.

The above den was built by the only boy in the group who seemed to have a clear vision of what he wanted. He began using the materials that we had collected but then found ways to change the materials such as splitting pieces of wood in half to form different materials that he could use in different ways. He wanted to make a den for little creatures, such as rabbits or mice, in the winter to avoid the cold.

The kids who built this structure wanted to go with more of a shelter/hammock style of building than a house. They used bubble wrap, hay, string, and an existing fence to create their hammock. When we asked them what kind of creature would use it they told us that they'd thought about it and decided that people would want to use it, so they drew a person on a rock and called it 'The Rock v2'.

Along with the natural resources that we had foraged, we also provided the kids with some arts and crafts supplies so that we could show them how to use man-made and natural materials together to create new things. The child who created this raft wanted to make something that a pirate could use to survive a storm. We had given the kids foam cut-outs of dinosaurs and unicorns, and thought that they would modify them or use them as templates. We did not expect that one of the kids would completely change its purpose and use it as the sail on their raft. It was inspiring to see the kids take materials that we, as adults, often consider to only have one use and completely deviate from that path and make something we would never even have thought possible.