Felted Rainforest Wall hangings

My adventures with the 5th grade class at Fredericksburg Academy continue, as we work on completing two glorious wallhangings . We have decided to create two pieces as the kids are creating such spectacular flora and fauna to include in our compositions. Just wait to you see what these kids ahve done!!! i am amazed and thrilled with the excitment, energy and inspiration that we have got going on with this project.
Just to remind you , we have been creating felted batts of felted roving. The kids have done all of the work. From the greens felted pieces I have pieced together two background canvases that are approximately 4ft wide by 5 ft long.

We then decided what other colors would be needed to create the inhabitants of the rainforest and made felted batts of wool . Then the kids created sketches and then cut up the felted batts to create their critters and flowers.
The felting was fun but the creation of the critters and foliage was amazing!!! Witha few suggestions and a few how to's, they took off!!

One girl spent some time creating a wonderful Tapir.
(seen here in progress)

The orange was perfect for the Toucan's beak.

Once the kids had laid out their animals on a piece of tuille, I took them home and carefully stitched the pieces all down to secure the compositions. I absolutely adore this anteater!! Isn't he fabulous???
We had one group of boys learning how to use needle and thread to stitch leaves onto vines that they had felted. They were so excited that they were sewing!!! Whooo hooo!! We had another group that was creating flowers and beading stamens, another creating insects and snakes and yet another group working on Jaguars and Lizards!!!

Our class work for the day!!

Here are a few closeups of some of my new favorite critters. I have placed them on one of the backgrounds so you can begin to get an idea of how this will all be built!!

Along with our hand felted batts of colored roving I had added pieces of felted wool sweaters inot the mix of available textile supplies. This lovely little scarlet macaw was created with a piece of a pink cashmere sweater that the Principal had donated to our cause!! The girl who created this wonderful bird ,cut feathers from a yellow wool sweater and from a blue felted batt.

The dragonfly was an inspired creation by a girl who used a doily for the wings and then ourfelt for the rest. The chameleon was put together using a felted batt that was made using bits of a blue net tub scubby captured in amoung the wool roving fibers. The young imaginations at work was a joy to behold and I consider myself so lucky to be so enriched and inspred by these terrifically creative kids!!!

We are getting to the point where we will be placing our trees ,vines, waterfalls and animals on our backgrounds; backing the wool with a sturdy fabric support and adding our wooden vine hanger. Stay tuned for the final reveal of our fabulous Wallhangings. The tough part is going to be putting these creations up on the Auction table at the Fundraiser!!!