Alicia Bayer

I'm sad that only one person replied all those years ago!  I'll answer for anyone else who might also be looking for some permaculture-related art ideas with kids.

I wrote a children's book last year on this theme, partially funded by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.  It's called Wild Art: Awesome Art Projects Using Wild & Invasive Plants & Other Nature Items (aff link) and these are a few projects from it if it helps.

I have also put out a free, nonprofit nature and foraging magazine for kids for over six years called Wild Kids Magazine and I often put nature art projects in there.  All of the archives are online so you can search for keywords like paint, charcoal, or certain plants.  Each issue is about 20 pages in PDF format to read online or print.

I do a lot of things for joy and feel a really deep need for it, for myself and for my 5 kids.  Nature is huge, and that's one reason I put out a free nature/foraging magazine for kids and their grown ups (Wild Kids Magazine), to help spread that.  Playing is big too -- playing pool at the free community arts center our family created out of a rescued 125 year old church, playing pickleball with my kids at the Y, playing tennis in the street with my son, playing Poetry for Neanderthals with my family, whatever.  Spending time with friends is huge. I have to travel to spend time with my best friend but I find a way to do it every few months for a week or so because it feels me and my kids and her family up so much.

But writing poetry is another way, even if the poems seem anything but joyful when I'm writing them.  And combining poetry with nature is the biggest.  I wrote this last fall when I was feeling less than joyful and it really helped. Combining art and nature always helps me find joy.

I've put out a free nature and foraging magazine for kids for over 6 years now, Wild Kids Magazine.  I covered our favorite spring edibles to forage in the March 2026 issue.

Here are the ones I listed as our favorites, though there are many more.

I love this thread and see a lot of our favorite nature books in the comments!  Miss Rumphius especially is my all-time favorite picture book.

I have written two nature-related picture books for children myself.  

A is for Acorns (A Foraging Alphabet Book) is a rhyming book that teaches kids about wild edible and medical plants. It was funded by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

And Poems from Under a Toadstool is whimsical poems about mushrooms, crystals and other natural items (and a few fairies!).

I'm also working on a book that I got another grant to produce, Wild Art, which teaches kids how to make art materials like ink, paint, paper, charcoal and paintbrushes from wild and invasive plants and nature materials, that should be out in the next couple of months.

We love stinging nettle smoothies.  Mostly I just blend nettles, a banana, frozen pineapple and water.  My kids love them.

I also like to make nettle seasoning -- dried nettles, salt, pepper, dried ramps, whatever else seems fun.

I'm a writer and poet, and I have a grant this year to publish a book that uses flowers as analogies for women and women's experiences, with money in the grant to pay local artists to do art for each of the 40 poems.  Prints will be available of them all with the art and the poems on them, and the artists will keep all the profits.  Two of my grown kids are among the artists who are taking part.  

The book is called Flower Girls and will be out later this year (you can follow along at my poetry page on FB here.  I love the art that my artists have created for the poems so far!  Here are a few.

I love my pressure canner.  I use both a pressure canner and a hot water canner, but I tend to use the pressure canner more often.  I especially love it for roasted tomato sauce.  I personally really dislike the flavor of tomato sauce and salsa with lemon juice or vinegar added, and I love the flavor of roasted tomato sauce.  I take all my garden tomatoes and cut them in big chunks along with chunks of onion, peppers, lots of basil, salt, pepper, garlic cloves, and then drizzle olive oil all over it and roast it until the house smells divine and everything is soft and cooked.  Then I put it all through the food mill and can it.  It tastes divine, better than any store bought sauce (here's the recipe).  I use this pressure canner/cooker/steamer (aff link) and I love it.  I purposely bought this one because I love that I can also use it for things like steaming tamales and other dishes where I need a great big pot.  I've had it for ten years now and use it every summer and fall.

At this point I use the regular hot water canner for applesauce and pears since the pressure canner makes them too soft, but the pressure canner for just about everything else.  I just find it fairly quick and easy and it doesn't  heat up the kitchen to the extent the hot water canner does when it's going all afternoon either.  I can also use it for water bath canning by just not screwing the lid on.  I use it for all kinds of things like -- juices, sauces, salsa, etc.  I love the taste of pressure canned salsa so much more than acid-added salsa.  I'm hoping to try doing beans in it sometime soon, since we use a lot of beans and I've heard it's very simple to make canned beans from dried with the pressure cooker.  

I just thought I'd mention this here.  I put out a free, nonprofit kids nature magazine every month called Wild Kids Magazine.  It's usually about 20 pages and is in full color, designed to be read online or on a device like a kindle or printed out.  Every issue features ways for kids to learn and play with nature, seasonal poetry, nature journal pages, foraging information, etc.  There is usually an in depth topic for each year like herbs or flowers, and this year it's wild mushrooms, with kids learning about two new wild mushrooms each month.

The July 2023 issue just came out yesterday and you can access it on the main site here: Wild Kids Magazine.  All of the past issues are online too, going back to 2019.

I just thought I'd share this here.  I just published my latest book, A Is For Acorns:  A Foraging Alphabet Book (aff link).  My 25 year old and another local artist did the art for it, and I got a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to write it and to pay my artists.

Here's the description:

A is for acorns,
Free for the taking.
We leach out the tannins
Then grind them for baking.

From Acorns to Zapote fruit, here are all kinds of wonderful fruits, nuts, greens, mushrooms and more to teach children (and their grown ups) about foraging. Each page features a poem and charming illustration about a different wild edible or medicinal plant, with other plants that start with that letter decorating the margins for kids to try to identify.

The end pages feature reference photos of all of the additional drawings. Kids can also sign the forager's pledge, keep track of their foraged plants and wish lists, and will be reminded about foraging safety and ethics.

With illustrations and reference photos of over 130 wild edible and medicinal plants!

I read Eating Wild Japan as a reviewer before it was released.  Here's my review from back then:

I read this book as an American forager. Our family forages hundreds of pounds of wild foods a year and they make up a big part of our diet. We forage wild asparagus, mushrooms, elderberries, acorns (once processed they make a fantastic flour), ramps, lambs quarters, apples, pears, gooseberries, raspberries, wood sorrel, dandelions and their flowers, nettles and much more. I wouldn't want to live without foraged foods, not just because they're free and incredibly healthy but also because they just taste so much better than most grocery store produce. We also forage for a lot of medicinal plants like plantain, elderberries, mullein, etc.

I was hoping to find a sort of kinship in this book and learn how people on the other side of the world use wild plants in similar and different ways from the ways we do. This book didn't really hit that mark. There's more talk of a few people doing really complicated ways of foraging and processing foods in traditional ways than just modern Japanese people subsisting on the delicious and healthy wild plants that are all around.

At one of our local foraging spots, we frequently run into Hmong families that harvest completely different greens than we do. One morning, my teenage daughter and one such family tried to communicate with each other about what they were each harvesting. For our family, it was spring ramps and nettles (one of the healthiest wild plants in the world, and surprisingly tasty once you blanch them and remove the sting or blend them in smoothies). My husband and daughter didn't recognize the greens they were harvesting but they seemed very enthusiastic about them. I was hoping to learn more about the plants that might be loved in other places and go unappreciated here, or to even learn new ways of enjoying plants that are found in both regions.

This was definitely an interesting book. I was often saddened about how much is being lost in Japan in terms of both nature and traditions (Bird describes massive trees that are being purchased from rural families so companies can use them to make one-slab tables for very rich people from the giant trunks, for instance). It almost seems like a tribute to the past rather than a modern foraging guide for Japan. It is fascinating and well written, but probably not ultimately helpful for those interested in actually foraging either in Japan or elsewhere.

I do recommend the book as it is quite interesting, but it's not necessarily the best modern foraging book.  

If you want to take a look at it on Amazon, it is here: Eating Wild Japan (affiliate link).