Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Fun

  • Dragon Bean bench in Tooting Community Garden: the grand opening

    Yesterday we officially opened the Dragon Bean bench at the Community Garden Summer Picnic!

    Gentle finishing touches last week

    For the past twelve months Fio Adamson has been guiding a participatory sculpture project in the Community Garden.

    About to cut the ribbon & unveil the bench

    Now, can Fio rest….?

    Working with many pieces of the American Oak felled on the Furzedown Rec, the Furzedown Oak Project was born.
    Over this past year around 80 people of all ages have worked with Fio to imagine, draw, visualise, carry, carve and advise on what’s evolved into the Dragon Bean bench.

    Our Summer Picnic celebrated the Dragon Bean and good company in the Garden: we had delicious food, made popcorn and cooked potatoes on a fire, enjoyed volcano kettle tea, picked brambles, weeded the leeks, painted beautiful signs for the vegetable plots…

    Lots more picnic photos on the Community Garden facebook pages

    We’re so lucky to have the use of the Community Garden land, loaned to us by Tooting charity Mushkil Aasaan. It means we can facilitate community projects like this and our outdoor learning with schools. Plus we can enjoy the Community Garden sessions with anyone who wishes to come, every Sunday.

    We’ve opened the space on over 225 Sundays since 2011.

    Why ‘Dragon Bean’? Come and have a look!
    The sculpture-bench is ready to sit or lie on in the Tooting Community Garden on Sundays from 11:00 to 1:00 at 5 North Drive SW16 1RN.
    We post any updates on our Facebook pages. All welcome!

  • Tour de Tooting in the Press

    Delighted that last weekend’s Tour de Tooting makes the front page of the Wandsworth Guardian this week!

    With this report on page 3

    And this is Emma Brazell’s short reportage film of the day on youtube.
     

  • Well that was fun! #TdeT

  • So what is outdoor learning?

    For the past 2 1/2 years, TTT has been running outdoor learning classes with pupils from Gatton, a local primary school in the community garden. From weekly sessions with Reception and Year 1 classes, to 7-week projects with the Year 6 students, the classes encompass a huge range of cross-curriculum learning, developing new skills and vocabulary and allowing the children to fully interact with nature in the safe and beautiful environment of our garden.

    But I still get asked regularly, what exactly is outdoor learning? So, here’s a brief example of my class today, on a beautiful autumn morning with a lively Year 1 group…

    After warm greetings and not-at-all-exaggerated reports on how much they had grown over the summer holidays, the children discussed the different seasons, today’s weather and how the sunshine made them feel: happy, bright and a bit sweaty! We then looked at some of the plants we had been growing – a cherry tomato that I picked just before they arrived and a beetroot. They were very excited to discover that beetroot acts as a natural dye and took great delight in getting a red thumb. We also went to look at the green and yellow pumpkin that was growing in the vegetable beds.

    Then we played an energetic game of seek and find, bringing back different numbers and colours of grasses, leaves, pinecones, sticks and acorns. The children learned that the squirrels love to eat acorns and hide them away so that they can eat them later in the winter; we found lots of buried acorns in the garden – sorry squirrels!

    And then, while half the group help collect objects for the Big Draw, the other half used trowels (remembering the safety instructions I taught them last year) to dig up the old pea plants in their little veg bed. The plants went on the compost heap to be recycled in the garden. We all put our hands into the freshly dug soil to feel how it was drier on the top and damper underneath but was also loose like crumble mix. And the numerous worms that were unearthed during the process were all gently and kindly transported to the bush where rumour has it they were having a big worm party…

    Finally, after making big shapes, small shapes and star shapes, the children exploded with an impressive “Acorns!” for their “word jump”. Exit one group of happy, rosy-cheeked, energised children.
    Sharon

     

  • Shelter – the theme for our 5th Tooting Field Day

    On Sunday August 2nd we focused on Shelter.  
    Each family Field Day safari has a theme that’s about enjoying the local outdoors, creativity and also low-carbon living. We’ve explored Travel, Water, Nature and more…and had a lot of fun together, and discovered parts of Tooting we didn’t know at all.

    What did we do?
    In the first part of the afternoon we met at Sprout Community Arts and made insect hotels out of re-purposed plastic bottles and cardboard (yes, packaging from Dan’s kitchen furniture). 

    These shelters are designed for ladybirds and lacewing flies – both are welcome predators on aphids. The results were fantastic!  Brilliantly decorated, with ideas zipping around the tables as children and adults thought of new techniques, and showed them off, and copied. Lucky bugs…we made over 3 dozen shelters.

    The second part of the Field Day continued the theme. 
    We walked to Tooting Graveney Common and built shelters and dens from willow branches (kindly donated by Lambeth Council).  Again, the creativity and healthy competitiveness that everyone displayed was inspiring. People also commented how much fun it was to hang out and play in the woods. 

    After a picnic (courtesy of Pooja, Arena and The Collective Dairy) certificates were awarded to the best dens in different categories by our young judges Dominic and Benji.
    At the end we followed the ‘leave no trace principle’, dismantling all the dens (after we’d taken photos to remember them by!).

    But what’s this on Airbnb? 

    One of the bottle shelters may have been left behind!

    It sleeps 16…and has 8 bathrooms…look it up and check out the spec.

    And look out for other Shelter-themed surprises you may find in Furzedown and Tooting – let us know what you spot. Including any sleeping ladybirds

    Thanks very much to all the helpers who prepared and led this wonderful day, and to participants for your energy!

    The last Field Day is on September 13th, part of the Tooting Foodival. There’s going to be a giant pea … all the info is available online here. All welcome, all ages, and it’s free.

  • A Wild Afternoon in Tooting 22nd Feb

    The film is a passionate and witty exploration about how to enable young people (and the adults who may not be sure how to help make this happen) to get outdoors – and swap screen time for wild time. More information on the Project Wild Thing website.

    Booking: Come for the whole afternoon, or for either of the two parts. So we can make plans for numbers of participants, please book in for free here. Or of course drop in on the day.

    More details on Project Dirt.

  • Open Day in the Garden 15th June

    On June 15th, as part of the Open Garden Squares weekend, TTT presents the Tooting Community Garden Open Day & Father’s Day Fete at the Community Garden, 5 North Drive, not far the Lido. Come and discover for yourself this hidden garden paradise. It’s free, naturally, and there are events for all ages including story-telling, paper making and games.

    Or maybe you would just like to come and experience this reclaimed semi-wild growing space, chill out and picnic or get some gardening advice from those involved in the projects we run with community volunteers and local schoolchildren.   

    There will also be the usual garden session from 11 till 1 for anyone interested in getting involved. 

    All welcome, whatever you fancy.