Yr Ardd – Family Centre
This is blog number 2 of 4 about our recent project, Yr Ardd. Read the whole series by following the links below.
Family Centre, 29 August 2024
The first session was held with families from the Family Centre. We welcomed several families on the day and we had the lovely company of six children of pre-school age who were raring to explore the garden and to talk about their experiences.
I gave each of them a little scribbling book and a pencil just in case, I was ready to take my lead from the children, and we were off! I started by talking about the weather, their favourite weather and also if the weather lived inside them, what kind of weather would it be. We talked about the senses and how when we are out in nature we can use all five of our senses to have a really good time.
Then we went for a walk around the garden to see what we could see, and oh boy, did we see some things. We got to make food in the mud kitchen, we got to play in the willow house, we got to sit by the pond and spy waterboatmen, look at lily pads and think about frogs and tadpoles, fish and birds. We spent some time in the polytunnel smelling the perfume of tomatoes and marvelling at the size of courgettes. We got to sit and draw too – my favourite picture was of a bird that had done a really big poo. And we got to run around like crazy on the paths, we got to climb things and just enjoy being there. It was great.
Then, we came together again in the cwtsh in the middle, I set up a small flip chart and asked everybody what they remembered about the day, what they’d experienced and felt. We wrote everything on the chart and suddenly, through sharing recollections, we had a wonderful poem that truly reflected our day lovely together. I also got given some beautiful wild flowers picked on the day.
A day in Yr Ardd
It doesn’t matter what the weather’s like outside
sometimes it’s raining or sunny,
the sky full of clouds like feathers
or snow making everything magic,
the garden is pretty, full of lovely things.
We saw fruit and vegetables growing,
growing quickly and slowly,
growing all the time,
changing,
growing like us.
Tomatoes taste like summer if you like them
or like ‘bleugh’ if you don’t.
Courgettes grow as big as your arm and heavier,
they’re speckled green, camouflaged.
Birds like coming here to eat seeds and Mr Snail,
they come to meet Dewi the deer and Haf the hare,
and have a good chat when we’re not looking.
We are happy here,
we love cooking in the mud kitchen
exploring through the willow tunnel
out to the pond with the cup and saucer leaves
and the waterboatmen skating lazily.
This is Yr Ardd – it is green, it is growing.
– The Family Centre Group, 29 August 2024.