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The Nature of Art: Growing Kids’ Attention, Confidence + Joy

5/13/2025

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By Shari Davis, Camp Wildcraft Co-Founder/Director

“Wonder seeds our curiosity. Wonder snaps you to attention and is one of the
​most effective ways to spark curiosity
.”

-- Your Brain on Art
I recently read the insightful book Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, which explores how the arts change our brains in beneficial and lasting ways. Research increasingly backs up what we see and hear at camp. Neuroplasticity--the brain’s ability to expand and rewire throughout life--is especially activated by artmaking. Every time a child (or adult!) paints a new image, or figures out how to weave yarn through a loom, their brain is not just observing—it’s physically changing: neurons are firing! But for neurons to truly wire together--and for real learning, meaning, and growth to happen—the experience must be salient: it grabs your attention, is sensory-rich and engages your emotions. These moments happen daily at Camp Wildcraft. 
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The sound and shape of focus
I hear it in the sound of 40 kids sanding walking sticks to take on their hikes. The ch-ch-ch of sandpaper rubbed along branches collected after the fires– the collective hum a soothing background music. With the roughest grade they sand the black remains of the burn, then run to the Guides, suddenly experts in the vocabulary of sandpaper grades. “Can I have a 120?” It takes four grades of progressively finer sandpaper to achieve the final mirror-smooth layer of wood. “Am I ready for the 400?” they inquire, with a sense of urgency. There is joy in this type of simple, physical work. With sustained effort that kids of all ages can manage, they transform their stick into a helpful tool, a steady companion as they hike the uneven trails.

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I see it in a child’s face: looking intently at their canvas after gluing an image of ancient art to its center–some of the oldest art ever made. Our campers choose from dozens of black and white photocopies of art across the world, the creators now unknown. Reaching inside themselves for their own patterns, texture, story, they work to embellish and add to these ancient creations. I watch with fascination as four to fourteen year olds sit knee to knee in front of their canvases, immersed, focused and surprised at what emerges. Mixing colors – vibrant green-blues or orange-reds, holding their paint brush confidentially, their strokes thick and thin, our campers find unexpected joy in glossy paint being transformed into infinite designs, shapes, ideas. 

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Why are these experiences so satisfying?
When we’re immersed and focused—and challenged at just the right pitch—our minds and bodies enter a deeply rewarding state of flow. Research by Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced CHIK-sent-mi-high) confirmed that we feel happier and more focused during flow—the self-critical parts of the brain quiet down, and we stop judging and overthinking. 

Growth inside and out 
Camp Wildcraft is filled with these kinds of salient, feel-good, growthful experiences.   
  • NATURE is the ultimate salient, sensory-rich experience. Just 20 minutes in nature activates the parasympathetic nervous system, lowering stress hormones and helping kids relax, feel more present and happy. Making art in nature deepens the benefits.
  • HIKING POUCHES & SKETCHBOOKS: Every Monday campers take needle and thread and stitch a pouch to sling over their shoulders, and a handmade sketchbook to take on the trail. Kids of all ages learn to hand sew, strengthening motor skills, patience and persistence. Sewing activates both sides of the brain, and because it’s rhythmic and focused, it calms the nervous system. Campers carry their sketchbook (and pencil and snack) in their pouch on all our hikes, drawing and writing along the way.
  • CURIOSITY is a core value. We spark it all day long: on the trail, through story-telling and in multi-age conversations in our morning circles. That spark of curiosity releases dopamine, fueling empathy, engagement, and deeper connection—with each other and the natural world.
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Choice, Autonomy and Confidence
Wonder, Dreams, The Spirit in Nature–we channel kids’ imagination, energy, curiosity through weekly themes such as these. Our expansive themes are a catalyst for the big art projects we create each week and the conversations and stories that connect us. Whether creating a papier mache animal mask, wooden wonder box or large painting, campers have a lot of autonomy in their art making. Encountering a pile of wood scraps, or old National Geographic magazines, stacks of animal pictures, or an array of seedpods collected from nature, they quickly realize: the choices are theirs. Being emotionally invested provides a strong sense of ownership over their work—and growing confidence in their unique creative selves as they experiment and explore new ideas, materials, techniques. It’s a confidence carried home from camp, along with their stack of artwork, stories of each day, and hand-sewn pouch filled with their sketchbook and treasures collected along the trail. 

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Every Hike is a Story:

10/19/2024

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Animating & Deepening our Experience in the Wild
By Shari Davis, Co-Founder/Director Camp Wildcraft 
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Wood Turtle we met in Kingston, NY 

Her wide black eyes watched us, without a blink. Four scaly orange and gray legs held up an oval shell, stamped with patterns of seashells, fossils, tree rings, stone. On a forested trail in upstate New York, after camp this summer, we met a turtle who at a distance looked like a rock in the road. We sat beside her (or him), its gray shiny face encircled in an orange folded hood. This turtle was in no rush so we spent some time observing each other before moving him to a safer place away from wheels, dogs and feet. 
    
What stories did this solitary turtle hold? How far did she travel to this spot in the road and where was she going? When did our new friend last have a meal and what was on the menu? Was there a mate or turtle children in the nearby woods? How old was she? Why was the shell imprinted with those ancient, circular, symmetrical designs?  Sitting with this patient turtle and asking these questions we didn’t (yet) have the answers for, expanded the narrative of our linear walk with images of this turtle’s imagined life. We came home eager to learn more about this beautiful creature. We discovered she was a rare Wood Turtle who lives near streams and hibernates in winter and that each turtle shell pattern is a unique identifying “fingerprint”.

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Benny continuing his turtle drawing (from memory) that he started on the trail. ​

Every hike is a story. You don’t always meet a roaming Wood Turtle, but wherever you walk, whether around the block or on the trail, when you activate your eyes, ears and curiosity, there are small wonders everywhere: the industry of insects, the flight coordination of crows, the tenacity of trees as they rebound from drought and fire—the giant possibility of every acorn. The hike begins and along the way there are a series of encounters and discoveries and small dramas to be shared, “look at this!”—“did you notice how that ….,” “what do you think the (fill in the species) was thinking, feeling, doing?” 

As we observe and ask questions, we invite curiosity to roam the landscape of our imagination. When we shape and tell stories or draw what we see, write a poem or make a mandala of collected seedpods, stones and twigs, we allow ourselves to ponder, feel and make meaning of these small wonders. We animate and deepen the experience for our kids and ourselves and as the joy, connection and sense of belonging take root, we feel an expanded sense of home in the wild. ​

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Drawing by Benny Ferdman


Every Hike is a Story: Questions to Ask Along the Way
At the beginning of the hike  
  • What do you see that’s surprising?
  • What are you noticing/seeing for the first time? 
  • Which path should we take? (if there are options)
At the middle of the hike, along the way 
  • If you could have a conversation with this tree, (bird, plant, flower, rock…) what would you ask it? What do you imagine it would tell you?
  • What is this wild place alive with? 
  • Do you see faces in the tree truck (mountain, clouds....) 
  • Can we draw with rocks? Are there some rocks that have color? (Note that yellow and red ochre rocks create a beautiful golden hue on paper.)
  • What are we finding on this trail? Can we count how many different wildflowers there are ? Can we collect, trace, do rubbings of different leaf shapes? 
  • What can we hear if we close our eyes?
  • What mountains do you think they are? Let’s check a map when we get home.
At the end of the hike
  • What do we want to explore more of next adventure? Where should we go, what do we want to discover? 
  • Are there questions we have that we want to investigate when we get home? 
  • Can we draw, write, share to remember what we saw? 
  • Who would like to create a group poem? (like we do at the end of camp each day). Each person shares a line (someone writes it down) that reflects on what you saw, heard, felt, imagine, wondered about, or connected to. Recite it aloud, weaving together all the experiences into a shared narrative. 
What to bring on an adventure hike 
  • small sketchbooks (for kids and adults)
  • pencils with erasers and colored pencils
  • magnifying glass or binoculars (if you have one) 
  • A few optional apps to get to know what you see and hear on the trail (one's we use the most)
    • Merlin Bird ID
    • iNaturalist 
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We later came across the fossilized remans of this 2 million year old Land Turtle at the Natural History Museum in NYC! A giant, prehistoric ancestor of our little Wood Turtle! 🐢

We'd love to hear how you and your family find stories in nature. Please share your thoughts, ideas & comments below! 
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How Nature Restores our Wellbeing

5/31/2023

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"Nature is not a place to visit, it is home." Gary Snyder

How do our experiences in nature restore our sense of wellbeing? Are there ways we can explore the natural world to increase our creativity?  How can we feel more at home in nature? These (and more!) are some of the big  questions that inspire our encounters with nature at Camp Wildcraft. In this blog, we’ll  share some of our experiences at camp, a little bit of the research that motivates us, and some ways you can create more awareness and connection while exploring nature with your kids. ​
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At Camp Wildcraft we see how our campers are happier and their best selves after wading the creek, searching for crystals, pushing themselves up a hill with 25 other kids, or pondering a giant oak while drawing in their sketchbooks. By pointing out surprises on the trail we invite kids to see the functional design of seedpods or  hear the patterns of bird song. We share nature’s intelligence and gifts: such as the recent discovery that yellow and purple wildflowers grow near each other as their complementary colors draw pollinators. Or that the round oak galls that fall from certain oak trees, can be used to make the blackest ink– and have been used for this since ancient times. (We make and use this ink at camp :)  ​
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Research shows that exploring and observing nature alleviates negative thoughts, lifts our mood and improves our focus. Being in nature fosters a process of restoration and what psychologists call “soft fascination", a kind of “passive attention" which is effortless and diffuse. This primes our brain to have unexpected connections and insights. Observing patterns, forms and colors in nature have a soothing effect on the human nervous system. It frees us from rumination and worry, allowing us much needed time to find calm and renewal. ​
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At Camp Wildcraft we draw kids attention to the small wonders and interconnections they may not have noticed. Storytelling, scavenger hunts, drawing in our sketchbooks creatively  activate kids on the trail and invite them to notice plants and animals within the landscape. Working collaboratively to build big forts from branches or creating small worlds under the trees with sticks, rocks and leaves allow kids to engage with all our senses and feel, through our body, heart and mind, the interconnectedness of all living things. 
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​So how can families recharge together by finding wonder and wellbeing in nature ?
​Here are some ideas from our Camp Wildcraft experience: 
  • ​Be present.  Give each other the gift of attention. Allow yourself
          a phone break.
  • Bring along sketchbooks for both kids AND adults. Take pencils or colored pencils or watercolors….Stop along the way to look closely at details or the broader landscape. Take a breath and draw and paint. Find ochre (yellow colored rocks) to draw with. 
  • Tell stories. Stop in a shady spot and tell a story about a favorite childhood memory of being in nature–the ocean, a trip, an adventure. Think about obstacles you encountered and overcame, surprises and mystery, conflicts and collaboration, wonder and awe. 
  • Play “I spy” on the trail. As you’re walking, take turns noticing unexpected details which others need to find, “ I spy with my little eye….”
  • Make rock cairns. impromptu sculptures of stacks and balanced rocks.
  • Find a walking stick. Take it home and sand part of it. Add some paint if desired or wrap some yarn or string around the handle. 
  • Print out one of our Camp Wildcraft Nature Journals (below) to encourage a closer look at the natural world.  
Share with us below some of your ways of recharging and connecting with nature!
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Additional resources to enliven your family nature encounters.  
  • Apps: Some apps can help us focus on, rather than distract, from nature. Some free apps we love:
    • MerlinbirdID  lets you record bird songs and identify them. 
    • inaturalist–which invites you to observe and identify plants and wildlife by uploading photos on their app. 
  • Nature Journaling: John Muir Laws is the Guru of Nature Journaling. Explore his Facebook page and website for a wealth of lessons and inspiration for kids and adults. 
  • Hikes We Love List and Camp Wildcraft Printable Sketchbooks 
  • Click here for Benny and Shari's local "Hikes We Love" list 
  • Click here for Camp Wildcraft Nature Journal  #1 
  • Click here for Camp Wildcraft Nature Journal #2 

Some of the research mentioned here is from Thinking with Natural Space, The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Hall
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The Wildcraft Wonder Cabinet

3/13/2019

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Welcome to the second edition of our Camp Wildcraft blog, "The Wildcraft Wonder Cabinet." Periodically,  we'll be sharing what we're learning about art and creativity, how nature helps us thrive, and growing compassionate and resilient kids. Our second edition explores RESILIENCE-- a quality we actively nurture as part of the Wildcraft experience. ​
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GROWING RESILIENT KIDS
​

By Shari Davis, Camp Wildcraft Co-Founder/Director
"Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from the bumps of everyday life. All children are born with natural resilience, but kids have different degrees of buoyancy."   Dr. Kenneth Ginsberg
​
So how do we nurture greater buoyancy in our kids so they can bounce back in the face of challenges-- both large and small? I've spent much time researching, pondering, and observing the ingredients of resilience. I'd love to share some insights I've gleaned  directing a teen wellness program for a local non-profit,  training educators on this topic,  and of course observing our kids each summer at camp. 

Why do we want resilient kids? 
We all encounter challenges in our daily lives. It's part of being human. But resilient people see challenges as opportunities to learn. Resilience is a mindset that starts developing in early childhood, and fortifies children with the capacity to learn from and cope with difficulties,  At home and at summer camp, caring adults can coach our kids to think through and learn from the everyday challenges they encounter so they can move forward with optimism and confidence. 
So how do we  nurture resilience? 
  • Support kids in developing competence and confidence. Competence is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently. Confidence is gained through developing competencies and seeing that they are capable!  
  •  Use the Power of YET. When our children experience a setback or failure, frame it in a way that promotes perseverance and grit. Re-frame the failure by adding the powerful word YET.  For example: I’m not good at multiplication vs. I’m not good at multiplication yet. The first example uses a fixed mindset and promotes a defeatist attitude. The second illustrates that there is room for growth and improvement. 
  • Small stumbles when you are young (when stakes are relatively small) show that you can learn and bounce back from challenges.  Coach kids to talk through difficulties; ask them questions which guide them to find their own solutions. 
  • Build emotional resilience in kids through the simple act of active listening. Practice listening to your children without fixing.  Help kids think through problems, for example, you can say, "Hmmm, that sounds tough, how do you think you want to handle that?"
  • Encourage kids to build strong social connections with good friends and supportive adults including teachers, coaches, camp counselors and others who are positive influences.
  • Practice and model resilient behavior as parents. Talk to your kids about what you have learned from your own challenges.  
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What gets in the way of resilience? 
  • Not allowing kids to fail or take risks: When kids are not allowed to make mistakes, or take healthy risks, they don't learn the mental tools and perspectives to persevere, try again and and bounce back. 
  • "Bumpers and guard rails": Parents can  serve too long as protectors, which gets in the way of kids seeing they can thrive outside their comfort zone. 
  • Too quickly intervening:  If parents step in too fast when kids feel frustration and distress,  they don't develop self-efficacy and confidence to rise above the inevitable disappointments and challenges. 
  • "Bubble-wrapped kids": When children always have things done for them, and have no control of the outcome, it can lead to "learned helplessness." Julie Lythcott Haims, author of How to Raise an Adult, stresses the importance of intentionally teaching life-skills to encourage confidence and autonomy. 
  • Not letting kids construct their own separate identity: kids need to be encouraged to develop healthy selves, separate  from their parents, and other siblings, so they can "own" their lives and identify and value  their unique strengths and interests.

Summer Camp is the perfect environment to nurture resilience. Each day, out in nature, kids practice independence and self-efficacy, build new friendships and a range of new skills. At Camp Wildcraft this is core to our mission and our staff is trained to actively nurture a resilience mind set  in all of our campers. 

A few (highly) recommended  go-to resources 
BOOKS
Julie Lythcott-Haims, 
How to Raise an Adult
Click here for Julie's YouTube video 
Any book on brain-based parenting by the remarkable Dan Siegel, M.D. 
The Whole Brain Child
The Yes Brain
Parenting from the Inside Out 
Click here for Dan Siegel's  YouTube video
Maggie Levine, The Price of Privilege
Jessica Lahey , The Gift of Failure 
WEBSITES
https://www.heysigmund.com/building-resilience-children/
www.fosteringresilience.com/7cs_parents.php
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/
​
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/emotional-resilience/#build-emotional-resilience
Brene Brown on Empathy--a must-see 30 second animated video

Do you have additional resources or thoughts to share? Please add them here!
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The Wildcraft Wonder Cabinet

2/3/2018

4 Comments

 
Ideas and inspiration for growing creative, curious and caring kids who feel at home in nature.
Welcome to the first edition of our blog , "The Wildcraft Wonder Cabinet." Each month  we'll be sharing what we're learning about art and creativity, how nature helps us thrive, and growing compassionate and resilient kids. Our first edition explores CURIOSITY--one of the core values of Camp Wildcraft. We invite you to add to the comments; we're curious to hear about what you are  discovering  as well!  
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Wonder, Curiosity & The Need to Collect...
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Think about a time you found a mysterious seed pod or a  feather as you hiked a  trail or found a smooth shard of sea glass or a prized shell while carefully scanning the wet sand on the beach.  

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What drives the desire to find and collect surprising, unusual or everyday wonders  is a  heightened sense of curiosity, strong observation skills  and a love of the hunt! Benny, our Camp Wildcraft Co-Founder,  has a good eye for finding all things weird and wonderful--from fossils and feathers, to wire and metal objects, rescued from the road, after being twisted into random and amusing pattens by the tires of passing traffic! 

The impulse to seek, collect, categorize and display unique artifacts, or ordinary wonders, has compelled  us humans since ancient times. Cultures  around the world  have long collected and displayed sacred objects in shrines and alters to mark a holy or sacred place.  During the Age of Exploration from the 1400's  to 1600s, Europeans started traveling the world and brought back natural and cultural wonders: fossils and skeletons, plants and shells, that they considered unusual, rare and wondrous. These travelers built Cabinets of Curiosities, or Wonder Rooms, in essence, shrines to nature,  that are considered  our  our earliest   museums. 

Wonder and curiosity are similar, both focus our attention and enliven our existence. But curiosity is a shade different than wonder as it leads us to action – towards a next step to discover more. Indeed most educators believe that real learning begins with curiosity as this fuels motivation to know more, understand, and make connections. 

So how might we encourage greater curiosity in our kids (and ourselves!)? Here are some approaches  to experiment with: 
  • Encourage kids to ask questions, but don't be so quick to answer them. Challenge them to find their own answers, in books, on line, asking people who might know, or through experiments. 
  • Create new conversational traditions around the breakfast and dinner table.  Ask each other what you are/were curious about today-- and what you discovered, what you still need to find out-- and how you plan to do it. 
  • Encourage inquisitiveness about strangers--look at the driver or  passengers in the car next to you and ask "what do you think their life is about? Take advantage of any comfortable opportunity to talk with people you don't know. Find ways to learn about and connect with people whose culture is different than your own.
  • Create lots of space for unstructured play and tinkering. Play fuels curiosity which in turn fuels creativity,  enabling  us to make surprising connections and fuel deeper learning and understanding. 
  • Don't be so quick to throw out your kids' stuff--help them create spaces to collect, curate, arrange and physically ponder relationships between objects they find and create. 
  • Model curiosity for your children--let them see that you never stop exploring and learning. Talk about things that you are intrigued by and what you discovered. 
  • Get outside your comfort zone! Each week try something new, go on a field trip, explore a new part of the city, visit a museum, learn a new skill, cook different foods together, embrace unpredictability and surprise. 
  • Encourage your kids to make a Wonder Cabinet. Suggestions below. But don't do it for them, just give them a nudge and let them build new skills and follow their own curiosity.
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious,”  Albert Einstein 

Create Your Own Wonder Cabinet!

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  • Create a space in the house or yard where your collection can be arranged, exhibited, shared and talked about.
  • Be creative and recycle. Consider: an old shelf, fishing tackle box, pizza box, embellished shoe box, rows of recycled jars or plastic containers, plastic ziplock bags tacked to a cork board.
  • Collect things that surprise, inspire, and interest you.  Use all your five senses to notice the wonder in everyday things, the patterns in nature, unusual  objects found along the way. 
  • Check out the book Cabinet of Curiosities by Gordon Grice. This inspiring and instructive  book for kids includes lots of ideas on how to make your own. 
  •  Visit great local collections: Museum of Natural History in Exposition Park, The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Culver City (kids 8 and up), the The Fowler Museum of Global Art at Culture at UCLA for starters. 


A Gallery of Wonder Boxes, Discoveries & Collections
 from
 Camp Wildcraft 

"Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder and spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals
the​ 
human spirit."   e.e. cummings

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    Authors

    Shari Davis and Benny Ferdman are artists, educators, co-founders of Camp Wildcraft--and passionate collectors of wondrous and surprising objects and stories found along the trail. They are also the co-founders of Creativeways.org which houses the archive of thirty years of ongoing arts, education, exhibit and curriculum projects. 

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  • Home
  • SUMMER CAMP DETAILS
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  • ART BOXES
    • Art Box Videos
  • ART PARTIES
  • New Blog!