Autumn Colours



Mama Beech is gaining her colourful coat for the Autumn months, and the floor is a gallery of colour and texture. 







The children are amazed at the colours they can find.





AND the life cycle of a leaf.



We found a skeleton leaf today and the children couldn't believe how delicate 
         or pretty it was.


The outdoor learning aspect of our glorious grounds is beginning to emerge as classes venture out to collect 'signs of Autumn'.




The return of the 'Nature Table' to classrooms, or at least to a communal area is
something schools need to think about. 
We assume children see nature and experience it all the time, via a garden or urban park or near their more rural home. The reality is that many children arrive to school by car, or bus, and hardly step foot in the great outdoors. Lot's see a football pitch, or swings, or a bike trail at the weekend, but not all, and these activities don not encourage the art of stopping and experiencing the immediate surroundings.

Some of us struggle to find time to venture into nature, some of us make time, some of us never think about it amongst all the other things we have to juggle in our heads. Most of us have been all of these people at some point in our lives.
So if we can offset at school simply by NOT printing of photographs of leaves for an Autumn display, and instead involve the entire class in hunting for items to support the topic, then that's an easy way to introduce outdoor learning into school.

Even the most urban of concrete playgrounds will show SOME sign of Summer waning and the season changing. Take your own photographs. Keep them in the playground after playtime for 10 minutes to see what they observe and see what knowledge they already have, it's a great starting point.












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