::: getting on board “The Spore Project”
Have you heard of the “Spore Project“ yet?
This May 2010, turn your trash into art and take part in the largest art installation in the world! thousands and thousands and thousands of paper bag mushrooms will be planted around the world! Show your support for art education and creativity!
A little while ago we heard about it here from Teacher Tom and decide we wanted to get involved … to become a part of a world wide project.
“The SPORE Project is a worldwide effort developed by artist Doug Rhodehamel to promote awareness for the support of art education and creativity in day-to-day life. The project illustrates the importance of self expression, resourcefulness and creativity – specifically, how to look at one thing (a simple paper bag) and see what it can be instead of merely what it is. The project was created to build awareness, to let people know the importance of art.”
Don’t these mushrooms look fantastic!
We adapted Doug’s instructions slightly on how to make the paper bag mushrooms to better suit the children’s abilities, then provided them with paper bags, bamboo skewers, sticky tape and decorative supplies.
We gave the children a quick demonstration before setting them free to create!
Once they got the hang of making the mushroom shape …
they were off and running!
They decorated their mushrooms with paints and stickers …
outside in the lovely autumn sunshine.
How cute do they look?
Come on back into the Hush Garden and take a peek at what they did …
Little mushroom crops started popping up all over the place.
In every available nook and cranny.
In the centre garden, beneath the bird bath …
Oh … they were so careful not to squash them!
All the way along the edge of the dry creek bed …
as well as in the raised bed at the top end of the garden.
The weather was so beautiful, the garden looked magical!
The children were mesmerized by the garden…
and the creek bed came to life!
These two friends, Alannah and Audrey made and decorated twelve mushrooms each.
In total we created one hundred and four … what a team effort!
The children’s excitement was electric.
It was like fairy land in there …
oh … and dinosaur world too!
We are both so impressed, and proud of the way the children have pulled together as a team over the last week. First building the garden and now creating our spectacular crop of mushrooms!
These children are beautiful and never cease to amaze us in their enthusiasm to participate.
Great job every body!
A quick update on the mushrooms before we post …
On Tuesday we left the mushrooms out in the garden and over night it rained and rained and rained. We weren’t looking forward to finding them in the morning …
but incredibly every single one of our beautiful mushies survived intact! In fact the only evidence that there had been any rain at all was …
this delightful little puddle!
Our young friend Lachlan said they must be … magic mushrooms!?!
When the children rocked up they led their parents out into the garden to show them what they had created the previous day … They were still buzzing with the excitement of the day before!
Their parents were amazed and several of them suddenly … got it … They got why their children came home the day before and begged them to be allowed use all their paper bags to make mushrooms for their own gardens … which many of them did!
Doug Rhodehamel is right … paper bag art is beautiful!
Tags: garden, mushrooms, paper bags, Spore Project, teamwork
That looks fantastic! Your garden really does look magical. Do you think a 2 year old might be able to handle a project like this?
Hi Tammy! Certainly the decorating aspect of this project would be heaps of fun for a two year old! If you mean might a two year old be able to follow Doug’s instructions to make the mushroom … well heck it is art isn’t it … and art is creative … so we say provide all two year olds with paper bags and let them make their own unique mushroom shape … So I guess the answer is YES we reckon a two year old might just love this project!
Oh wow, they look fantastic. I love the picture of the view from the gate into the garden with a vista of musrooms. Your kids must have been really into it to produce so many. I only had a handful of kids interested on the day we did our mushrooms, so my visions of a mushroom invasion like yours swiftly disappeared!
Your garden is looking just beautiful. Every time I look at a new photo I see something new I love, or another idea I store away. Starting Monday my director has set aside 1/2 hour for us to start planning our outdoors in earnest (doesn’t sound like much time, but you know how hard it is to get away). I’m so excited that stuff might actually get done instead of living vicariously through you guys and teacher tom!
You’re right Jenny the kids were crazy for this idea It was just one of those things that simply took off! Before we started planning the garden we took lots of photos of the space from every imaginable angle. That way when ever we got a brilliant ‘thought’ which was usually away from kinder, one quick look at the pictures and you could pretty well tell if the idea would work. I (Donna) even took to drawing my ideas straight onto the photo … I’m a very visual person. Good luck with it Jenny and keep us posted !
Yay! Doug is going to be so happy. Have you sent him a link? If you haven’t, I will.
Thanks Tom …. and yes I have sent him a link!
Love it, luv it, LURVE IT !!!!!!!!!!
What a great project to be part of and the mushrooms look great! Thanks for sharing the links.
lisa
[...] with it too! (Check out Teacher Tom’s mushrooms here, and more gorgeous creations over at Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning. Can’t wait to see who else plays along.) Using humble brown paper bags, even young kids [...]
I did this with all my art classes (prep – 6) in the first week of school. We planted the mushrooms in the front school garden. It was so great to see students so proud of their art, showing each other, desperate to show their parents after school and watching families walking in and around the mushrooms together.
::: Heather we had the same response from our kinder children. We then visited a local primary school – Croydon West Primary school, and planted mushrooms in their sensory garden which encouraged the students there to get on board the project too!
