Nature Mobile :: DIY Earth Day Celebrations :: Waldorf Activities

Earth Day, April 22nd, is an BIG day in the Sunny House. We celebrate it as if it is Mother Earth’s Birthday. Raising environmentally aware children has been an important part of our parenting and My Good Man and I are proud that our children are truly and authentically earth-conscious. They refuse, reuse and recycle as if it’s the most normal thing to do.

I have shared a wonderful Discovering Waldorf article on Waldorf-inspired Earth Day traditions that has lots of great ideas for creating a fun and meaningful Earth Day celebration.

Making a DIY nature mobile is a great way to get into the spirit of Earth Day. We made our Earth Day mobile as a birthday gift to Mother Earth and I’m sharing our easy and fun tutorial with you here.

It looks so pretty hanging in the Sunny House.

We started our nature mobile by going on an afternoon walk and collecting a basket-full of pretty gifts from the earth… flowers, leaves, ferns, seeds, sticks. We were amazed at how bountiful Mother Earth’s gifts are… and how beautiful too.

Materials needed for a Nature Mobile :

•  – Sculpey clay
•  – Nature bits
•  – a rolling pin
•  – string
•  – a long twig

1.  In our hands, we rolled the Sculpey clay into balls (about 1 diameter in size). Then we flattened them into circles with the rolling pin, making sure not to make them too thin.

2.  We chose nature bits (flowers, leaves, sticks) from our collection and pressed them, firmly, into the clay.

3.  When we gently removed the nature bits from the clay and gasped at the lovely imprints they had made in the clay.

4.  Some of the leaves and flowers looked so pretty in the clay and so we decided to leave them there.

5. We used a stick to make holes in the top of each circle.

6.  We baked the clay circles in a warm oven, following the instructions on the sculpey package (250 degrees F for 15 minutes.)

7. We removed the clay circles from the oven, letting them cool completely and then strung them onto the twig to make the most beautiful nature mobile.

I wasn’t sure that the leaves and flowers would stay beautiful through baking them in the oven… but they did. They hardly even changed color and are now dehydrated into the clay circles and will last for ages.

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of our nature mobile this morning as the run rose. Can you see the rays of early morning sunshine coming through the window to greet our pretty mobile?

We have lots of other nature-inspired crafts and activities in the archives that I’m sure you’ll enjoy doing with your little ones.

Blessings and magic,

Donni