Expressive Art and Design is a central factor of this project.

There are opportunities to use a range of materials creatively to design and make tokens, whilst encouraging children to share their ideas, experiences and imagination and use a wide range of art and design materials, colours, patterns and textures.

The tokens left by the mothers and fathers at the Foundling Hospital with their child all looked different. Sometimes the tokens were made from pieces of clothing or blankets.

Sometimes the cloth tokens were decorated or sewn with a picture or letters. The pictures were often things like birds, flowers, bows and hearts. These pictures meant different things like love, hope for a happy life, or that the child would grow healthily. A feather for freedom. A stone for strength. A flower for beauty.