Starting a Primary School Bonsai Club

[legoman_iac]

Would be interested to know your vision for how it would run?
- You run it like an outside school hours class like art/languages/chess etc. where risk and insurance is on yourself.
- It is run outside class hours by a sympathetic teacher
- It is run as an educational program inside school hours

Is your daughter wanting to take her proposal to her teacher or you are going to set up a meeting with the principal?

We're still working on the proposal ... hope to submit it to the Assistant Principal in a few weeks. they're expecting it. Ideally start next year. Didn't think of insurance, great point! Likely looking to do it as a lunch time thing, with a teacher supervising. I want the kids to run it and take ownership, but I may have to lead some sessions to start with.

[legoman_iac]

Hey All Following Along,

So we ditched the club idea, as we weren't sure we'd get the numbers, so opted for running a single "Intro to Bonsai" workshop.

I went in today to my daughter's year 4 class, showed some slides of old bonsai (from my travels), different styles (of mine), some progressions of mine which I also took in the trees for them to see up close.

I took in two specimens of a Baby Woolly Bush, tube stock, along with a White Anzac Bottlebrush.

We repotted and wired up one of the woolly bushes, so we essentially have a "before and after", then wired and trimmed the bottlebrush, which is about to flower ... so they got to see an "instant bonsai", as well as see some flowers soon.

I also bought a bunch of plastic xmas tree branches, and gave them to all the kids, along with pre-cut wires, so they could all practise wiring branches.

The session felt like a huge success, most kids were engaged and some asked great questions. One kid told my daughter later that she wants to grow up to become a "bonsai maker" ... feel that's a huge win!!!

We're also looking to run some extra "advanced" workshops next term, I have some old gum branches, thinking to do some dead wood grafting, and have some thick trunk banksia to trim and wire.

It's been a fun journey prepping the talk, working it through with my daughter, and hopefully inspiring the next generation of aus bonsai members.

- Daniel

[Kevin]

Congratulations Daniel,

You thoroughly researched, planned and executed this event, which was received with great enthusiasm.

Well done.

Kevin

[DianeVH]

Great news, glad its working out for you. I hope you will let occasionally us know how things are going.

[legoman_iac]

Another set of school updates!!!

I've just run two more workshops, last week (with a banskia repot and style demo) and this morning's "trident forest" plantings (thanks to the great stock I purchased from shibui!).

At each workshop we also provided each student with a small Grey Honey-Murtle tubestock for them to wire and trim, then to take home, along with a care guide sheet.

Hoping this is finally the start to a school bonsai club, as I've now introduced three groups, aged 10-12 years old and have the Deputy on board and very excited by bonsai.

Will get some pics up soon, to share the creations of the next gen bonsai artists.

[Trimmy]

Good on you. That is a great initiative.

[Rintar]

Great initiative love it. Wish I had the time to do something like this with my kids for there school. Interested to know which Sydney council near Randwick thinks Ficus Rubiginosa or Obliqua where not endemic to there area. They might not be know that we cleared so much land for farms and then houses but they where.

[legoman_iac]

Some pics of the trees the kids worked on:

- top left: juniper "fused" onto an old branch from a nearby gum tree
- top right: some Grey Honey-Myrtle wired/trimmed
- bottom two: the trident forest plantings

school_bonsai_lowres.jpg

[Ryceman3]

Outstanding.

[legoman_iac]

Quick update: the trees were alive when I picked them up end of term 4 last year!!!

However, the styrofoam boxes were worse for wear and a few trees had been disturbed/uplifted so had not survived the school yard ... so I've sponsored a pot (recent purchase from Ray Nesci's) and combined them into one uber forest, as below:

20240128_094336.jpg

Thinking the trees are a little too tall but will let them thicken up a bit before doing much else.

[legoman_iac]

Forgot the before pic ... circa 29 December 2023:

Screenshot_20240128-181746_Gallery.jpg