26 free play sessions, 1 huge play day, 5 collaborations with artists, and our first ever exhibition.

For me, there is something really special about bringing people together in a creative environment: it’s exciting, experimental, different and a little bit brave. I once received some feedback from a parent who said, “The atmosphere is so calming and different from anywhere that is filled with small children, which is normally complete chaos!”. It probably should be chaos with paintbrushes everywhere, clay on the floor in builder’s tray for children to stomp all over, but 9 times out of 10 it’s not. I believe it is important for us educators (and parents) to trust in the child and, sometimes, let down our guards about ‘mess’. When we place children and their caregivers at the centre of creativity, we give them permission to fully express themselves.

The not knowing what will happen in a creative session always excites me. I love that most of our play sessions focus on the process and not the end product. Within those explorations of different materials, children are often discovering something new and expanding their minds. I am forever learning unique ways of using materials from very young children – they often have great ideas, without preconceptions of how to use it in its adopted or ‘suggested’ way.

When I started this project, my main focus was on the development of children, and in partiucular, helping them thrive with creative expression. However, what I did not realise, is how the play sessions would impact the caregivers. The feedback gathered over the year from families was strong – it demonstrated that the sessions had improved wellbeing for many caregivers, and how much adults enjoyed playing with the materials, just as much as the children. I believe this to be true for many, as I often feel much better after playing alongside others during a play session, particularly manipulating clay – for me, clay is very therapeutic and at the same time, the freedom to play means that I can have open conversations with other caregivers and young people, whilst making little models or marks in the clay.

I can’t say that the past year has been easy: a lot of thought goes into planning the play sessions and possible explorations. Each time I will sit down and make a mind map of possible provocations and materials to use with the families. I try to bring something new to each session, as well as bring some of the children’s interests into the provocations, and materials that children can re-visit to embed their learning. The process is somewhat playful and fun; I often change things around in the room whilst setting it up, due to how the light shines through the window, or a last minute burst of inspiration. For this, I am very grateful for the patience of the volunteers that work with me at Awe and Wonder – you are all amazing!

One of the stand-out sessions over the year was our Under the Sea themed Creative Day alongside professional driftwood artist Dan Wakeman. We had no idea how many families would attend on the day, and the queue outside the George Reynolds Centre at 10am will forever stay in my memory. Around 130 children took part in our creative activities including painting wooden fish for a big tree sculpture, making clay coral reefs, CD-fish art, light and shadow play in our cardboard boat, and a giant octopus art piece created on the field used a range of mixed media and recycled materials. Outside, the children explored balancing skills on our walk-the-plank and lots of pouring and filling with out plastic guttering. We were visited by Crewkerne’s Mayor Alice Samuel at the event, who commented positively about how multi-sensory the event was, and how lots of children and parents seemed to be having a lot of fun!

Following this event, we presented the works created by the children at our, ‘I am an Artist’ exhibition in Crewkerne & District Museum & Heritage Centre. We filled that room with children’s artwork, from the floor to the ceiling, with hundreds or sculptures and portraits displayed around the room. As well as showcasing the wonderful creativity of young children in Crewkerne, we also offered an interactive sensory room with lots of interesting items for children to explore. I would personally like to thank Janet and Philip from the museum for having us last summer; two wonderful people who work so hard to keep history, culture and the arts free for all in our small town.

A big part of our project was ensuring we gave children and their caregivers rich experiences of creative art. We wanted to make sure we dedicated a number of our sessions for professional freelance artists to come and work with our families. Over the year we have worked with a number of outstanding artists – Peter Margerum, Andrea Oke, Dan Wakeman and Natasha Rand.

Each artist brought something new and exciting to the project. Peter Margerum blew us away with his natural woodland sculptures and array of loose parts (nuts and bolts, log pieces and pine cones etc) for children to attach objects of their choice to their artwork or musical instrument. Allowing the children access to hand tools such as screw drivers, hand drills and power drills was a huge bonus – many families tell us that their child still asks if they could do this again. Peter is a ‘yes’ artist, much like I hope I am, and he is a champion of free play.

Andrea Oke entranced the families in light and shadow play, whilst Dan Wakeman opened our eyes to the ‘wow factor’ and possibilities of large-scale art and driftwood sculptures. Working with Natasha Rand was special for us, as she is passionate about creative opportunities here in Crewkerne. She demonstrates attributes of a true community champion, through her ability to form positive connections with families she interacts with. I will never forget watching her work alongside two boys at our session who was clearly fascinated by our Makedo cardboard tools. Natasha sat with this family for a long period of time, actively listening and responding to the children’s ideas and curiosities. Whilst leaving the play session, their caregiver told us that one of the children has SEND, and it was the longest they had ever seen them engaged in creative activities.

Following a successful year of creative play, we were awarded further funding to keep our sessions running during the winter months. Our Warm Spaces project brought a lot of new families into our space, and taught us many important things about the importance of creative play for communities (which I will try to discuss in more detail in another post).

For now, our project is on hold until we secure more funding to keep doing what we do.

Thank you for taking the time to read about our project.

Victoria