Hi all!
Today I will tell you about the fun permaculture workshop that we had with the children in Todorovo village. We decided to work in front of the cultural center I told you about since the weather was wonderful. The children had bulgarian folk dancing rehearsal before our workshop so they were really happy to be outside in the sun.
We started the workshop with a discussion on the topic of “Guilds in the garden”. We sticked to the walls all the guild illustrations from the book I told you about “Friends in the garden”. We asked which of them have gardens in their homes and all of them raised their hands. We explained in a simple and understandable way what “a plant guild” means and we chose as an example the Tomato guild. We asked them if they can guess which are the best friends of the tomato. I was impressed by the fact that some of them knew the right answer.
Then, we gave them a puzzle which was a 2-sided (english-bulgarian) illustration of the tomato guild. And lastly, we invited them to chose from a jar full of written piece of papers with the plants in the Carrot guild. They were supposed to choose a random piece of paper without looking.
Here is a funny photo of me preparing all the jars with the plant guilds before the workshop.
We suggested to the children to do a face mask of the plant that they randomly chose from the jar and in the end they were supposed to guess the guild they were in and to show the movements that the plant does when it is growing.
We gave them art materials such as colorful paper, 2 kind of scissors (a regular and a curvy one), different kind of ropes and glue. With a little bit of help from me they created their face masks. Some of them were being really creative and thinking outside the box. We supported them by saying that there is no right way to do the mask so they can not make a mistake as long as they have fun doing it.
In the last photo you can see the last part of the workshop- they were showing the movements of the plants they represent. The garlic, onion, and carrot are under the ground, while the spinach and the lettuce are moving towards the sun with their big leaves. They were so cute doing it.
As a goodbye present we encouraged them to take the masks in home and to grow the plant that they represented. We told them about the seed library in the senior people’s club that they can use.
Next week I will tell you about the enormous permaculture farm that we visited close to the village. It is called “Venets” and the owner of it- Katrin was so kind to invite us to sleep in the beautiful house next to one of the gardens.
See you soon,
Polin
