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Connect with artists for a garden art project

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Artists in Schools & Communities | Center for the Arts

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We have over 40 Resident Artists in our program including visual artists, media artists, dancers, folk artists, musicians, photographers, glass artists, craft artists, and writers. Artists in Schools & Communities at PF/PCA organizes and facilitates creative arts experiences in a variety of diverse settings that occur off-site from our Shadyside campus throughout the year.

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Let's Move Pittsburgh: Mini-Grants for Schools

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Let's Move Pittsburgh: Mini-Grants for Schools

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Champion Schools | Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens | Pittsburgh PA

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Let's Move Pittsburgh offers a mini-grant program that celebrates and rewards schools for leading new or existing programs to improve children's health with the goal of helping every school in Allegheny County become the healthiest place for kids to learn and grow.

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18 totally awesome bird feeder crafts for kids. These are so cool! I love the Lego bird feeder!

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Garden Grants from the Whole Kids Foundation

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Garden Grants from the Whole Kids Foundation

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Whole Kids Foundation is an organization devoted to improving children's nutrition and wellness with the goal of ending the childhood obesity epidemic.

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http://www2.fiskars.com/Community/Project-Orange-Thumb

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The Nature Works Everywhere program periodically awards grants to schools to help fund projects such as green infrastructure for local environmental challenges. If grant applications are currently being accepted, details will be listed here.

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Grow Pittsburgh's Community Garden Sustainability Fund

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Grow Pittsburgh's Community Garden Sustainability Fund

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Once your Learning Garden graduates from our 2-year support program, you are eligible for a Grow Pittsburgh grant to sustain your garden and keep growing!

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Community Garden Sustainability Fund
Are you a member of a community food garden? Could your garden use some support to become more sustainable?
Apply to the Community Garden Sustainability Fund for materials like compost, fencing and tools or technical assistance like consulting and educational programming.

The CGSF is a project of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and Grow Pittsburgh, sponsored in part by Allegheny County Economic Development, that exists to provide material and technical assistance to established community food gardens in Allegheny County. These include gardens managed by schools, community organizations, shelters, religious institutions and individuals. The Sustainability Fund supports projects that will improve or enhance gardens so that they may have a long-lasting positive impact as part of their communities. The program has been active since 2013, having supported 80+ community gardens with over $77,000 of materials.

See below for a link to the application.

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Get Funding and Support - Grow Pittsburgh

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Community Garden Sustainability Fund Are you a member of a community food garden? Could your garden use some support to become more sustainable? Apply to the Community Garden Sustainability Fund for materials like compost, fencing and tools or technical assistance like consulting and educational programming.

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Compiled by the Captain Planet Foundation

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External Opportunities - Captain Planet Foundation

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The Captain Planet Foundation cannot fund all of the great work students and teachers are doing for the environment. Fortunately, there are other organizations as passionate about engaging youth in hands-on environmental stewardship work as we are! Find recommendations for other funding sources you may want to consider for your project ideas below.

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KidsGardening - Helping Young Minds Grow

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KidsGardening offers a variety of grants to new and existing youth garden programs across the nation.

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From the American Academy of Dermatology

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Shade Structure Program | American Academy of Dermatology

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The AAD Shade Structure Grant Program grants monetary awards of up to $8,000 for the purchase of a permanent shade structure.

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Students can make critters like snakes, caterpillars, and ladybugs.

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We are slightly obsessed with snake crafts at the moment. I don't know how it happened exactly but we cannot get enough of them. It might be the fun and colorful patterns that are making me love them so much, or how it's so fun to move them around into different curled up positions. At any rate, they are just fun, fun, fun! This month I am joining in on the kids craft stars monthly challenge using rocks and we created this patterned rocks snake craft. It's like a busy bag and craft rolled into one and I'm pretty sure I've been having as much fun playing with these colorful rocks as my kids. They have been a huge hit so go grab some rocks and paint markers and lets get crafting a colorful snake craft.
This post contains affiliate links to the products mentioned. Read our disclosure policy for more information.
How to Make a Patterned Rocks Snake Craft

- 12 black, flat rocks (We purchased a bag at Michaels that look similar to THESE)
- paint markers
- googly eyes
- red felt
- hot glue gun (adult supervision required)

Directions:
1. Lay out all of your 12 black, flat rocks. Use your paint markers to draw patterns onto 11 of the rocks. We chose to make 3 different types of patterns onto our rocks. You can do as many or as little as you want. Let your rocks dry. It shouldn't take too long because the paint markers dry quickly.

2. Cut a snake tongue out of your red felt and use a hot glue gun to glue it on the end of your 12th unpainted rock. Then glue two googly eyes onto the snake head.

3. Lay the rocks in a pile and let kids get creative arranging them to make a patterned rocks snake craft.

This works fantastic as a busy bag for children. You can store your patterned rocks in a bag and then pull them out during quiet time for your little ones to use for creative play.

It is also a great activity for toddlers and preschoolers who are learning about patterns. You can start out making the snake with a few rocks and then challenge them to continue the pattern to finish making the snake. Also challenge them to come up with patterns all on their own.

KIDS CRAFT STARS MONTHLY CHALLENGE

Have you made a fun craft with rocks lately? We want to see! You can share pictures to Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and tag your photos with the hashtag #kidscraftstars. I will be sharing a few of my favorites every month. I hope you will join us throughout the year with all of our craft challenges. You can see our monthly schedule and materials below.
Check out these other stick crafts from the kids craft stars! You can keep up with all of our latest crafts by following our Pinterest Board or following our hashtag #kidscraftstars on Instagram.

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Patterned Rocks Snake Craft | I Heart Crafty Things

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We are slightly obsessed with snake crafts at the moment. I don't know how it happened exactly but we cannot get enough of them. It might be the fun and colorful patterns that are making me love them so much, or how it's so fun to move them around into different curled up positions.

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Students make music at Maxine Smith Steam Academy's Learning Garden.

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Mindfulness Exercises - Using the Garden for Center and Calming

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Mindfulness Exercises - Using the Garden for Center and Calming

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https://www.thenational.ae/uae/education/dubai-school-sows-seeds-of-mindfulness-and-well-being-with-rooftop-garden-1.13156

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Dig Art! A Garden-Based Art Curriculum from Cornell

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Dig Art! A Garden-Based Art Curriculum from Cornell

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Introduction
Benefits
Eco Arts
Activities
Resources
Gallery
Toolkit
Project Acknowledgments

Introduction

What:
Dig Art! Cultivating Creativity in the Garden is a new project guide for educators working with youth that integrates gardening with the arts. The arts activities in this guide will help to teach ecological literacy and inspire new enthusiasm for garden-based learning. Dig Art! activities support youth to creatively express themselves and their garden experiences through gourd art, printmaking, time-lapse photography, and other creative projects.

For many young people, creating art is a natural form of self-expression and is a central source of fulfillment, relaxation, and creativity in their lives. That is why encouraging children and youth to integrate endeavors in the arts with the outdoors is the central aim of Dig Art!

How:
Dig Art! activities are diverse and adaptable and thus can take place over a time-span of one hour, one week, or one month. There are short, small-scale activities and larger, long-term projects.

Where:
Dig Art! activities can take place indoors and outdoors, anywhere and everywhere! They can take place in a schoolyard or school garden, in a community garden, in a backyard garden, in a tiny flower patch, in the classroom, at day camps, summer camps, after-school programs, 4-H programs and more.

Benefits

Speaks to a diversity of learners
Art activities create opportunities for different learners to approach subject matters in a variety of ways, thus providing avenues into the garden-based content for a diversity of young people.

Makes learning meaningful
Incorporating the arts into garden-based learning programs helps learning to become meaningful. Art enhances the learning process through hands-on experiences that foster critical thinking and creative expression.

Develops reflective learners
Gardens are living laboratories for environmental and scientific explorations. Art is an excellent means through which to explore and express ideas; it helps learners to engage with important ideas and questions and to be reflective learners.

Creates an interdisciplinary and holistic curriculum
The more an educational program can make linkages across disciplines, the more holistic the curriculum will be. The scientific inquiry generated from garden-based learning is consistent with arts education because it encourages students to question concepts and make connections.

Makes learning visible
Art makes the outcomes of garden-based learning content visible and thus can be an important tool used for program evaluation, assessment, and students sharing their learning with others.

Eco Arts

See the following page, Safety Tips, for more information on safety, materials to avoid and recipes for natural homemade dyes and paints.

Beautifying a garden space with mosaics, murals and sculptures are all great ways to create a connection between gardening and the arts, but as you create art for your garden it is important to make sure that it is made with non-toxic materials. You wouldn't want the toxic elements from an art project to harm the natural environment in your garden that you worked so hard to make beautiful! After reading through this section, we hope that you'll think twice about which paint you buy to make those beautiful signs in your vegetable garden.

Despite being wonderfully engaging and fulfilling, arts activities such as painting and sculpting can be hazardous for your health and the health of the natural environment. You might not have realized that many of the ingredients in paints, glues, glazes, and other arts and crafts materials are toxic. Exposure to these hazardous products by children and youth can occur through ingestion, inhalation, or absorption through the skin. The group Healthy Child, Healthy World reports that exposure to the toxic chemicals found in some art supplies can result in problems such as headaches, nausea, burns, breathing problems, lung and kidney damage, and even cancer.

Activities

Adapt these activities to the age, interest, and skill levels of your group. All activities are in printable PDF format. Click on the topic heading for background information and connections to NYS Learning Standards.

Mosaic Making
Seed Mosaic Planter(pdf)
Stepping Stones(pdf)
Flower Mandala(pdf)

Printmaking
Leaf Print Casting(pdf)
Painted Leaf Prints(pdf)
Chlorophyll Prints(pdf)

Natural Fibers and Dyes
Basket Weaving(pdf)
Seed Jewelry Making(pdf)
Clothes Dyeing(pdf)

"Garden arts, theater, music, and dance are not merely interesting spectacles for entertaining community. They are the very stuff that a community's culture is made of. The best children's gardening programs don't try to fit "the arts" into a pre-established agenda, but instead cultivate project ideas, garden designs, and horticultural activities based on the natural creative instincts and artistic passions of the children themselves, young and old."~From Digging Deeper: Integrating Youth Gardens into Schools and Communities by Joseph Kiefer and Martin Kemple

Resources

Visit the Dig Art! Resources Page for inspiration and additional information about:

-Additional Activities and Curricula
-Garden Arts Inspiration
-Curriculum Integration
-Gardens, Music, and Drama
-Environmentally-Friendly Art

Gallery

See more photos on Flickr or the Art of Horticulture Gallery.

Toolkit

Our Dig Art! toolkits include a welcome letter, a full color poster, and eight beautifully illustrated activity cards. Specifically designed to inspire an interest in and enthusiasm for art projects in the garden, the toolkit offers a starting point for engaging in garden arts activities.

Feel free to download and print these materials on your own, and to share them with friends.

Activity Cards:
Leaf Print Casting front and back
Growing an Art Garden front and back
Basket Weaving front and back
Mosaic Making front and back
Gourd Band front and back
Jewelry Making front and back
Clothes Dyeing front and back
Painting and Photography front and back

Project Acknowledgments

Dig Art! is a collaborative effort. We are thankful for the support and expertise of many individuals and organizations.

Christine Hadekel, Project Creator
Marcia Eames-Sheavly, Project Advisor
Shira Golding, Poster Design & Illustration
Angela McGregor, Website

Activity Pilot Sites
Hort 1102: Hands-on Horticulture students and Professor Marvin Pritts (2007 & 2008)
Hort 2010: Art of Horticulture students and Professor Marcia Eames-Sheavly (2007 & 2008)

Art Garden
Aurora Ulbing
Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES New Visions (Board of Cooperative Educational Services)

Grass Photo Project
Howard Raskin
Frank Rossi
Craig Cramer
Sarah Richards-Desai
Cornell Council for the Arts

Gourd Crafting
Raylene Ludgate
Cornell Botanic Gardens

Mosaic Making
Students from STARR 07 (State Teen Action Rep Retreat, 4-H)
Joanne Baldini
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Dig Art! Cultivating Creativity in the Garden

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Introduction Benefits Eco Arts Activities Resources Gallery Toolkit Project Acknowledgments Introduction What: Dig Art! Cultivating Creativity in the Garden is a new project guide for educators working with youth that integrates gardening with the arts. The arts activities in this guide will help to teach ecological literacy and inspire new enthusiasm for garden-based learning.

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Outdoor Musical Instruments for schools playgrounds

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Freenotes Harmony Park Outdoor Musical Instruments for schools playgrounds parks All Ages And Abilities

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April is Kids Garden Month AND National Poetry Month. We've received some really fantastic poems as entries into our Dream Big contest, and I cannot resist sharing a few. (The blog header, above, is a Kids Garden Month entry from Ethan, Adelaide and Julia from Chalker Elementary School in Georgia.)

My Dream Garden Poem
Zoey, Arcola Elementary, 2nd grade

If I love gardens
Then I love animals too
I would put animals ,plants ,and tree's too
And I love gardens forever
I would add things everyday
And I am happy with my gardens!

my dream garden poem
Sameet, Arcola Elementary

the flowers are whispering
the trees are talking
the garden is yawning
the moon is yelling
the animals are understanding
the bushes are shivering

Ror0rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

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OUR SCHOOL GARDEN
By: Mrs. Morgan's 1st Grade Class

MY DREAM GARDEN
By LK, Raven's Wood Outdoor School for Renegades

The Garden Rap
By Evan and Greg, Loudenslager School

Are you looking for some ideas to incorporate poetry in the garden? We have a lesson plan for that! Growing Poems is geared for grades 2-8, and is designed to cultivate creativity and communication skills through garden-inspired poetry.

You have until April 30 to send in your entry for Kids Garden Month. Gardeners age 0-18: Tell us about your dream garden using words, artwork, song, or media (really, the sky's the limit!). What grows, who visits, and why do you love it? Entries can be submitted by individuals, or by a class or group. Each week we'll choose a favorite entry to receive a prize package, and at the end of the month we'll award two grand prize winners - one to an individual and one to a group or class - with a $250 gift card to Gardener's Supply Company to help their dreams become reality.

Thank you to Chartwells for sponsoring Kids Garden Month 2018!

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April is Kids Garden Month AND National Poetry Month. We've received some really fantastic poems as entries into our Dream Big contest, and I cannot resist sharing a few. (The blog header, above, is a Kids Garden Month entry from Ethan, Adelaide and Julia from Chalker Elementary School in Georgia.)

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Signs can welcome people to your garden, and also describe why your garden is there for your students.

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School Gardens - Rogers Elementary STEM Magnet School : Jeffers Foundation

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Rogers Elementary STEM Magnet School School Garden information.

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Temporary art like a banner can allow students to decorate and celebrate the garden without a permanent change.

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Mosaic beautifies the wall that serves as the backdrops to this Learning Garden in Chicago.

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Copy of Copy of Humes_mural complete.JPG

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Many people ask if they can paint their beds! Before you check out the ideas below, keep in mind:

✦ Involve your students, but have a plan! Handing kids spray paint and winging it can get messy.
✦ Consider tying the beds together with a common theme or colors. Plan what will be painted, and where.
✦ This could mean using stencils, or a common structure. One technique is to make geometric shapes with tape, applying the paint, and then removing the tape to reveal a pattern.
✦ Involve your Art Teacher! And involve your Learning Garden Educator from Grow Pittsburgh.

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Mosaic surrounds these garden beds in Chicago, which have been decorated by making a geometric tape design, painting overtop, and removing the tape.

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Krylon Fusion make both spray and brush on paints in a wide variety of colors. You can also use the white to cover up graffiti on some beds. No primer required, but the beds should be cleaned and dried before use, and any plants should be protected as it is toxic.

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I have used Krylon Fusion for many years and spray can paints in general for over five decades. The most important thing to do in my experience is SHAKE that can for a good long time. And then some more, to ensure all the settled pigments are back in solution.

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By choosing consistent themes, these beds at Skinner North Classical School are tied together visually not only to each other, but to the colors around the garden.

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Painting on parachute fabric can allow your students to paint the mural inside the classroom over time. The fabric can then be adhered to the surface using these steps.

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The Neighborhood School (PS 363) is a public elementary school in New York City's District 1, in the East Village. The school, which runs from Pre-K to 5th grade, was founded in 1991 and is known for its progressive approach to education.

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Decorating the ground around the garden at the Camino Nuevo Learning Garden enhances their space. Plus, check out the additional landscaping!

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It's that easy when you take advantage of Lowe's Small Toolbox for Education grant program. Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation (LCEF) knows how hard you work for your kids and your community and is dedicated to helping your parent-teacher group achieve even more for your school.