Wild into Tame into Wild

I am curious about the kind of play that children engage in while wondering in the woods. What is the purpose and outcome of this less structured type of learning with materials? Is playing outdoors always about civilizing nature or is it a way of meeting the natural world halfway? So I thought I would try to test this by going out into the woods at Ox-Bow and playing with sticks and leaves in the kind of aimless way that I did when I was little, to see what happened. It was incredibly hard! I kept wanting to twist my play into an art project--which I did and totally enjoyed (see image). But I wonder if we could construct natural found object sculptures, then draw instructions about how to build the basic form and have another member try to recreate the object in synthetic/organic materials found in their location. What would these small sculptures and accompanying instructions tell us about the materials available in that place?

Regan