Friday 19th January 2024

What a beautiful frosty day to be outside.  Following on from Lucas's suggestion that we could make mud paint, we did just that and three other colours.  As our soil contains a lot of clay here at Foxton, it created a lovely warm shade of brown.  Unfortunately, we couldn't use water from our rain butt or the outside tap, as both were frozen, but Grace headed indoors and seemed to be expert at getting the consistency just right.  We did have paint brushes to hand, but the children also experimented with twigs, leaves, seed-heads, fingers, feathers and even string. There were abstract patterns, pictures of trees and even a dinosaur. Louisa and Matilda used a technique where they put down a think layer of mud and then etched their picture onto it.  A yellow colour was made from mahonia, a red one from hawthorn and rosehip.  The attempt at green using mint didn't work, but Louisa's suggestion of moss did!  As we ran out of time, the colours were kept in little jam jars for next time.  We made sure to only use tiny amounts to leave enough for the birds, as next Friday we will be taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch.