Nellie Melba’s Fundraising Gift Book with Jess Harris

A three-minute film and creative learning activity for children in Levels 2-6 with a focus on history, community activities, and visual art.

Explore Nellie Melba’s former home in Coldstream, Coombe Cottage, with Jess Harris, a multi-media artist and author from Mount Evelyn. Jess shows us a book that Nellie Melba produced to raise money for Belgian refugees during the First World War, including the illustration of the painting Wild Garden by Ellis Rowan. Jess talks us through creating our own drawing of a wild garden. 

This is a Yarra Ranges Regional Museum Creative Learning Activity.

How to run the activity

Step 1: Print worksheets (in colour or black and white) and prepare art materials; textas or pencils for a short classroom activity, or for a longer class, collage materials or paints.

Optional extension: The activity could begin with some preparatory drawings of gardens in the schoolgrounds. Another possible extension is stapling copies of the finished drawings together to make booklets; the template has a border on the left-hand side with space for staples. Perhaps the booklets could be sold to raise funds for charities or causes, just like Nellie Melba’s Fundraising Gift Book?

Watch the film here

Nellie Melba’s Fundraising Gift Book with Jess Harris audio transcript(DOCX, 15KB)

Download Printable Template

Black and White template

Nellie-Melba’s-Fundraising-Gift-Book-with-Jess-Harris-black-and-white-worksheet.pdf(PDF, 425KB)

Colour template

Nellie-Melba’s-Fundraising-Gift-Book-with-Jess-Harris-colour-worksheet.pdf(PDF, 424KB)