Tuesday 26 March 2013

Club Day. The Birds of Prey version.

Before I get into the details of our adventures in soap carving with the Birds of Prey Club, I must share how interesting the walk to pick up the boys was. 

As usual, Nicholas and Jaelyn ran ahead while Astrin and I walked behind at Astrin speed.  And the things we noticed while we cruised along at Astrin speed.  She stopped to show me "dirty" that was left behind by a car.  She pointed out a piece of garbage that needed to be picked up.  We saw that snow was slowly beginning to melt, despite the temperatures staying substantially below zero for over a week now.  And it looked like the trees were preparing themselves to start budding (though that could have just been some eternal optimism on my part).

Yesterday, I described how we prepared for today's meeting.  There were some things that I wish I would have been more prepared for.  For example, I would have ordered the book, The Inuit:  Ivory Carvers of the Far North, from an out-of-town library branchThis book was recommended here, and this blogger also provided a link for how to carve a polar bear.  This mama provided some wonderful tips, like using Ivory brand soap and making sure to have a tablecloth of some sort to catch all the shavings.

We got the idea for making our own tools from craft sticks here.  And because my children had so much fun making their own tools, I decided that the Club could make their own tools as well. 

Once the soap came out, I simply gave the Club a few tips, such as that scraping off little bits at a time to ensure the carving wouldn't break or crumble (which we learned the hard way yesterday).  I didn't provide them with any patterns, partly because I didn't think they would use them, and partly because I value providing children with opportunities to explore the given medium and create from their own imaginations.  I did, however, provide them with one resource that we could find at our local library on short notice:  Art of the Far North





Lastly, I wanted to get feedback from the Club on what activities they liked the most.  Here's what they shared:

  ~ Puppet making
  ~ Soap carving
  ~ Charades

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