A Crafted Sense of Nature Spring 2021

Young children have exquisitely receptive senses and soak up information like a sponge. They have not learned to filter their environment and therefore take it all in with amazing accuracy. We know feeding children whole foods is an important part of healthy development.  Offering their senses “whole” or natural materials is also important for healthy child development. 

DIY a Felted Nest & Egg Set

1. Setting Up the Form

Cut a dome shape from a foam pad. Cover with a plastic bag, this keeps the wool from felting to your form. Coil the roving wool around the form making sure to generously overlap the wool.

2. Needle Felting

Poke the wool with a felting needle until the wool starts to holds the shape on its own. This takes while and you can try using 2 or 3 needles at once. Remove from form and check to see if there are places were the wool is thin. Add more wool in those places, return it to the form and keep needle felting until the added wool is incorporated.

3. Wet Felting

Add a drop of dish soap to a bowl of warm water and add a few ice cubes to a bowl of cool water. Remove the wool from the form and take the plastic off. Return the wool to the form. This is the most vulnerable step for your wool, so be gentle and make sure you have needle felted enough that the holds its form. Submerge the wool into the warm water, squeeze the water out then submerge in the cold water. Repeat this about 3 or 4 times. Squeeze out all of the water you can.

4. Dry Agitating

Place the wool in the form, at the bottom of a pantie hose leg and tie a knot. Place in the dryer for 3 mins. Check the wool and if the size and shape are as you desire you are done. If you’d like the fibers a little tighter and the shape smaller, return it to the dryer.

Materials like wool, rocks, plants, roots, wood and dirt are full of textures, have varying qualities but are still subtle in a way that engages children while allowing them to digest the experience. These materials have a living quality to them; they come from the natural world, children see them in a context they can relate to and connect with, such as sticks come from trees and trees grow in dirt. This starts to connect their play to the world around them in a way they can make sense of it. Materials in the raw form are also simple and open ended leaving lots of room for children’s imagination to drive the play and exploration.

Making sure children have plenty of exploration in wild settings and all kinds of weather, fully meets their sensory needs. It teaches them about the elements, cycles of nature, and they receive all the healthy benefits of direct sunshine and fresh air. Physically, they are challenged to traverse the uneven and varying qualities to the terrain. This helps their brains and bodies get connected and hones their balance and fine motor skills. 

There is a bigger value we teach our children with this endeavor of sensory nourishment.
We teach our children about the earth through wilderness exploration and play with materials that come from natural sources. All these arise from the earth and will one day biodegrade back into the earth leaving very little trace or interruption to precious ecosystem balance. Unfortunately, there is so much plastic produced in the name of child development that will be around polluting our earth and our oceans until we find a way to remedy this cultural weakness.  

Enjoy this felting project as a creative craft, learning tool and outdoor game.  Use simple natural material of roving wool to felt a nest with a matching egg.  Make sets of these nests and eggs to play with color; finding the egg that matches the color of the nest, finding more objects the same color to add to the nest and mixing colors to explore the way colors look and feel. Take this game into the forest and have a little twist on traditional Easter Egg Hunt; hiding the eggs and letting the child find them and place them in the nests. These are just a starting place, I’m sure your children will come up with innumerable ways to play with these simple, natural materials. 

Words: Anne Heart • Photos: Jennifer Morgan Photography

Sourcing Local Materials

Three Sisters Weaving

Your source for local, hand-spun wool and supplies.

Visit their Facebook page for updates!

Double BR Alpaca Ranch

Bette and the alpacas have beautiful wool for purchase.

Email Bette Rittinger at bbr438@aol.com