As the cold weather is starting to arrive and the leaves are beginning to fall, the Burrow have gone into Autumn mode.
Over the weekend Soraya took a long walk around Victoria Park in Bath and Tiff ventured around Wells enjoying some family time, they both came across lots of autumn time bits and bobs which they collected for the Burrow children, so on Monday morning we had two bags full of leaves, conkers, pine cones, hazelnuts, acorns, brazil nuts, almond nuts and walnuts. We tipped all of the items into a large tray so we were able to use our new bug catcher pots and magnifying glasses to look at our resources up close and in more depth.
We have been discussing all the different types of leaves that we have in our tray. We’ve even been able to spot the leaves that some bugs have had a little munch on! We noticed that the leaf had lots of small holes all around it. We’ve also been able to talk about the colour of the leaves, there was a wide range of yellows, oranges, browns, reds and purples. Over the past few days we have been able to watch them change from one colour to another as well as watching them change to dry and crunchy leaves.
Some of our other activities have been creating leaf pictures, using PVA glue and paintbrushes we have been able to use our colourful leaves to make some lovely pictures. We’ve also been looking at things that float and sink in water, so we placed some of our conkers and leaves in the water tray to watch which would float or sink!
We’ve also had some brown playdough to explore with this week, blending in with the autumn feel we have provided the burrow children with some sticks, conkers and leaves and see what they come up with. A little girl and I were both exploring the playdough. She stuck a big stick into a mountain shape of playdough, then got a smaller bit of play dough and stuck it on the stick. I said to E “It looks like a bug” pointing to the small bit of playdough that she had just stuck on the stick. E replied “Yes the bugs are going up the hill to the top” She then created lots more small sized bits of playdough and stuck them all the way up her stick. Looking around the table some other children had copied E and began to create their bugs.
We’ve also been able to create some leaf bunting in the Burrow. The children helped to put leaves on the string and were discussing the colours and sizes.
This week's Forest School is also based around leaves, so check out Lauren’s Blog so you can see what we’ve been up too!
Simply going on a walk through a park or through the woods is such an easy idea to create such a sensory based activity for children. Looking at sizes and colours, feeling textures, smelling the fallen leaves and even listening to the noise we make when we stand on the old fallen leaves. So go on, take a trip out and about, see what you can find and come and tell us!
Thank you for reading,
Nicola