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The natural world is a treasure trove of learning and wisdom... Acorn Education is dedicated to integrating nature and education, and providing experiential learning for all of the senses. Seeking to improve our connections to the natural environment and gain a greater awareness, a sense of place, a sense of history, roots and culture, arts, crafts, skills and knowledge.
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Workshops at Westmill Farm 2011 Our aim is to create a safe and nurturing
environment for all to explore Every Thursday 10 til4 Volunteer Days Sunday 28th August Skep Making and Skep Beekeeping 10a.m.-4p.m.
Sunday 17th April, 10 til 4 Bark Horns and Willow Whistles. Work Weekend Sat 26th & Sun 27th March
10a.m.-4p.m.
Storytelling Circles
Wild Food Foraging . A day of exploring the fields, hedgerows, woodlands and wetlands of Westmill Farm. Learn the identification and uses of various roots, berries, seeds, leaves and funghi for food and drink, medicines and pigments.
Wood Wise Day
Brush up on your Tree I.D. and discover which woods are good for which purposes. Learn some fun nature awareness techniques. Then practice fire lighting skills, whittling and green woodwork. Thursday 28th May 10-4 Plant Wise Day
Bows&Arrows A whole day of learning about bows and arrows. then shave down your own bow stave and fletch some arrows ready for target practice. Making Bark Horns Learn about the time honoured Grass Green Horns of British and European Folklore... then create horns and whistles and reeds and make some traditional noises!
Besom & Broomstick making
Come along and make some sustainable brooms and brushes from Birch, Heather, Broom, Bramble, Hazel, Ash and Willow.
Natural Pigment Days Experiment with plants, minerals and natural materials. Creating pigments and pictures
Outdoor Skills & Ancient Technology Days Learning and practicing a myriad of natural crafts and skills
Eco Wind Join in with a range of acticities beneath the graceful turbines
Sacred
Singing Gather and sing sacred songs and share food cooked on an open fire ............. Skinning, Curing & Tanning
Traditional work with furs, skins and hides (families/adults) To Westmill Farm: From the A420 take the Turning signposted
Highworth and Kartong
Festival of Arts, Music & Culture in The Gambia
Storytelling Yurt BBC RaW Cities Festival, Trafford Centre, Manchester 'Folklore and Mythology
of Smithcraft & the Forge'
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Latest News and Events: Hill End Centre Early Years Shelter
Storytelling at Swindon Festival of Literature Children & Families Day
Natural Play Area Rose Hill Children's Centre, Oxford
Methyglynn and Barks Horns at Highworth May Day Market Saturday 30th April
Chepping View School Red Kite
Earth Trust(previously Northmoor Trust)Open
Day
Conversations With The Earth, Community Festival Old Book Binders, Oxford Friday 11th - 20th March
Chris is an entertaining and knowledgeable
speaker on all things ancient and he will have you enthralled with tales
of our ancient history and will also have artefacts for you to see and
touch.
Burns' Night!
Willow Eagle and Lily, SS Mary & John CE Primary School
Winter Solstice Storytelling and Ceremony Wednesday 22nd December, 7p.m. at Gaea
Alfred Williams Heritage Festival November 13, 2010, from 10am to 4pm
Thursday 7th October, Storytelling for Outdoor Learning, Hill End Centre, Eynsham Road, Farmoor, Oxon. 01865 863510 New sign hand carved
in Sweet Chestnut for Hill End Centre
Saturday 18th September, Burwardsley Outdoor Education Centre, Cheshire.
Opening of the Replica Iron Age House for the Habitats and Hillforts project with living history and ancient crafts: smithing; weaving; carving; bodging...
behind Noah's Ark Pub off the A338
Faringdon Eco-Week Eco-Yurt
and Eco-Den
Spring Watch
Medieval May Day Market Market Place, Highworth, 1st May 2010. 10a.m.-4p.m. May Pole, 'Green Jack', Stories and more... Highworth Historical Society
6 path Beehive Labyrinth created with Westrop Primary School
'Highjackers' Mummers Play 23rd April, Wharf Green, Swindon. 4:30p.m. 22nd April, Lunchtime Lecture 1p.m.Swindon Centrral Library 'Saint George - the multi-cultural heritage of a good old English icon'
Alfred Williams Folk Song Evening Tuesday 20th April, King & Queen, Longcot Children's Folk Music Workshop 6-7p.m.
Woodland Crafts
Hen House on Stilts
Wildlife Garden Wattle Fencing at SS Mary & John Primary School, Oxford
Totem Raised at Root & Branch Skep Making & Skep Beekeeping
Storytelling for Outdoor Education
Bread Oven at Bridewell Organic Gardens
Bee Hives & Tree Hives at The Tree House Gallery in Regent's Park, London
Lammas Open Weekend 1st & 2nd August
Sounds Like Summer! Sat 25 July, 1-6pm
'Greenspace Project' at Longcot & Fernham School
outdoor classroom collaboration with artists Sarah-Jayne Ebdon, Chris Park and the school children Storytelling Chair carved at Longcot & Fernham School
Making the Gaea Labyrinth at 'Gaea', Emerald Valley, Wendover Dean.
Caduceus Totem Pole project for Root & Branch
Coleshill Open
Day & Food Festival, Sat 12th September 2009 Ragged Hedge Fair, Abbey Home Farm 2008
photos and Video by Mike Grenville of Changingworlds.info story walks - willow sculpture - moving and erecting a megalith!
Bark Horn Making Project April/May '08 Whit Horns, May Horns and Shepherd's Horns
MUSICAL HAPPENING IN DUPNICA
CAVE, SLOVAKIA Spring 2008 Maytime Bealtinne Art Exhibition, Taste Cafe, Swindon.
Green Man crafted and photographed by Lynette Thomas Wood Carving and Green Woodwork Workshops
at Root & Branch Horticultural Therapy Centre January, February and March 2008
2007 Neolithic & Bronze Age Living History
at Durrington Walls with the Sat 8th & Sun 9th Sept
Burn the Wicker Man at Ragged Hedge Fair 2007 Sept 1st & 2nd
and Art & Architecture Week Round House Hermitage being built at Compton Verney 16th June- 6th July
Habitat Houses for Hedgehogs at schools and outdoor centres!
Seasonal Birch Besom Making!
Home Made Kayak Project:
Round houses by Acorn Education
To have one built for you or to come along to a roundhouse building weekend email Chris@acorneducation.com |
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Round House for Bedgrove Infant School October '06
The Round House at Barbury is Complete!
Many thanks to the dedicated crew,
the vibrant volunteers, the bright eyed schools groups,
the Swindon Ranger Team, Nature For All... and the Heritage Lottery Fund
Jim, Orc and Des... Thatchers, Wattlers and Daubers
Artists Romilly Swann and Nancy Gladstone painting the interior with natural pigments
Dan carving some of the oak lintels
...Visit Barbury Castle Local Nature Reserve and Iron Age Hill Fort to enjoy this Ancient British style shelter
designed and built by Acorn Education
named 'The Wrens Nest'
Living History at Barbury Castle
Giant Dragonfly
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During three free family workshops
at Acorn Education Centre, Westmill Farm, Watchfield, Oxon. SN6 8TH
we constructed a celebratory Dragonfly Sculpture
that was decorated at the Dragonfly Ball
and will be displayed on the Coate Water Nature Reserve lake later this year
sponsored by the Big Lottery 'Awards for All' initiative
Labyrinths
Plant Kingdom and Mineral Kingdom Labyrinths designed and created
by Chris Park of Acorn Education for Creative Landscspes,
Whitlenge Gardens, Hartlebury, Worcestershire... April '06
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Materials and landscape consultant- Keith Southall of Whitlenge... the paths are made of Red Gra... the standing stones are Welsh Slate and sea washed stones
to visit the beautiful gardens for your self click here
Heritage & Folklore
St. George's Day Mummers Play, at The Quarry, Swindon, a day celebrating the saintly heritage of England and the dedication of the Local Nature Reserve and SSSI... Sunday, 23 April '06
above photo by Lynette Thomas
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Tree Dressing at Stanton Park. In collaboration with the Ranger Team and Nature For All... The dressing of two Yew trees in the beautiful park, teaching nature awareness and the folklore of the Yew.
Storytelling Tours for the White Horse, Uffington Castle, Weyland's Smithy and the Avebury Complex....
ACORN EDUCATION ADVENTURE
THE CORACLE ORACLE JOURNEY FOR PEACE
Ecological artist Chris Park took a unique Pilgrimage for Peace last year. He single-handedly navigated a home crafted, primitive coracle boat from an Oxfordshire spring to the sea, through 190 miles of Britain’s water ways, carrying a magic Egg.
The voyage began on Wednesday, August 17 2005. Chris, 32, and his strange cargo,
ageless, departed from Bath House Spring in Watchfield, near the White Horse
at Uffington, and travelled along the river Cole to join the Thames near Lechlade.
He then continued down the Thames to London and to the river estuary, pausing
to visit various places of worship, education and art.
“Our journey seeks to integrate and unite many divided faiths and cultures,”
says Chris. “It celebrates water as a unifying bond between all races,
creatures and creeds, nourishing all and rejecting none. The waterways pass
through all kinds of communities and I hope many will be inspired to come and
greet the magic Egg.”
To read a diary with pictures of the whole journey click here.
Making of the horsehide coracle
Making a green willow framework for a coracle
Coracles are prehistoric craft, made traditionally from animal skins stretched
over a wooden frame. Chris has built several coracles using only primitive technologies;
he made the craft for this pilgrimage from willow and horsehide, cured in salt.
Rawhide used to tension the frame and the seat...
The horse hide is salted and de-fleshed with flint and bone tools
“Willow represents the plant kingdom and the horsehide heralds the animal
kingdom,” explains Chris. “The salt is from the mineral kingdom
and the journey will unite the human kingdom along the way. May the harmony
of our lands be complete.”
Strips of hide are cut to sew the hide to the frame...
the finished coracle above made with just willow & horse hide
Chris Park worked with the BBC for the seven week project called Surviving the Iron Age and works extensively with schools and artistic projects all over the UK. He is a descendant of Mungo Park family, the Scottish explorer, who navigated the African river Niger exactly 200 years ago.
For more information on Chris’s coracle adventure, including details of
the route, the construction of the coracle and the concepts behind the work,
call: Chris Park 07816591151 chris@acorneducation.com
To read a diary with pictures
of the whole journey click here.
Brush
up on your plant I.D. Then learn about wild foods, dyes and pigments,
string and rope, medicines, magic and folklore.
family days of making Hurdles, Wattle and Daub, Dens and Debris Huts form
Westmill Windfarm Public Open 
24th
July, 10.a.m. Marcham and Frilford Archaeology Open Day
photos
:D Butterworth
for more details
