Summer Camp for the Blind: Homegrown

 

This year's camp from school had an agricultural theme. Students were able to practice farm to table skills by picking basil and making pesto, picking blueberries for muffins and making butter to top it off. 

My friend Matt Forrest came for the first day of my Farmer's Market class to help me with a T-shirt screen printing project. These would be the camp shirts that students would wear on the field trip to go fishing. I started the design with a bunch of concept sketches before doing a larger drawing of a barn. My husband scanned it in and added the sunrise and text. We sent the file to Matt who used a photo process to create silkscreens, and that's where the students came in. A 45 minute class is just enough time to explain the process and have a handful of children print a shirt or two.

One of the highlights from the week was going to a farm and getting to pet animals. It's especially important for students without any vision to be able to hear the sounds feel the size, shape, and textures of animals so that have that background knowledge to reference when someone references the animal in a movie or book. Even I was surprised at how coarse the hairs on the pig were.

The corn bin was a huge hit for the kids with sensory issues. Getting buried under the dried corn felt like a weighted blanket.