A Day of Scorpions and Gnomes

Who knew that they had so much in common, scorpions and gnomes. Scorpions have been on this earth for millions of years. So have gnomes. Scorpions live in the rocks. So do gnomes. Of course scorpions don't wear pointy hats and gnomes don't eat insects (as far as I know).

If you read my last post, then you know the story of Sage and Luna and the Scorpion family. Today, the children made a soft pastel drawing of that story on black paper. I love pastels. They are so forgiving and so alive. Form and color melt under your fingertips almost like you are sculpting. We practiced blending and creating edges of rock and luminous mountaintops.

And then the gnomes came in. I had read about a sweet wood carving project and wanted to bring that to Poppy Mountain. So simple, really. We found some fairly thin branches. About one inch wide or even less, and cut them into three-inch lengths.

The children carved first the pointy hat atop the gnome's head, next the face. Then, they scored the branch where they wanted the beard and carved that out. Finally, they colored their gnome's hat in pencil and drew on a face. Voila!

Wood carving is the kind of activity one can get immersed in and forget about all her troubles. It's meditative. Oh, and if you happen to carve with a dull knife like I did, the experience lasts even longer.

One of the children today was so focused on his carving that he had time to make two gnomes. It was a great project to get into deeply. We took a snack break and also explored the forest for the makings of gnome dwellings. Then back to whittling. At the end of the day, some wonderful gnome homes were built. The gnomes looked pretty happy about the whole thing. Maybe they'll invite their scorpion friends over.