Signs of Autumn

As it is now officially autumn, on our nature walk this week, we looked for the changes in the environment that the change in season had brought.

We started off by examining the leaves, sorting them into piles according to colour or leaf type and using them to make pictures. We listened to the sounds that they made as they crunched underfoot and had some fun throwing and kicking them.

 

We found an apple tree that had a huge windfall. We collected lots of the apples and used them to make a caterpillar. I extended this for Betty and asked to put them into size order. This supported the younger children’s development as well as she talked about the biggest apple and the smallest apple. We had lots of fun arranging the apples into shapes and letters.

Although there wasn’t a huge amount of blackberries left, we collected what we could find. When we got home, we mushed them up into some water, sieved them and used them to ‘tie-dye’ some old white t-shirts. Afterwards, I dipped the t-shirts into cold saltwater to ‘fix’ the dye. Betty’s t-shirts were school style blouses which appears to have a coating on the fibres to repel stains. They looked quite good when we first did them but by the next day had dried a weird blue green colour. They looked more like something had been spilled on them so we shall have to practise this some more.

We also hunted for conkers which was lots of fun. We now have a lot of conkers so I am going to think of some activities that will use them…

Colours

This week, we have been focusing on colours. Colours can be quite a difficult concept to grasp and research has found that the boundaries between different colours is culturally, rather than innately, determined. Knowing which shades belong to a colour category is something which must be learned and can take longer for some children than others. Some researchers suggest that putting the colour after the noun helps. For example, instead of saying ‘the green frog’ say ‘The frog is green.’ This helps children to distinguish that there are two separate aspects to the frog.

We enjoyed reading the Tales from Acorn Woods book called Colours. Whilst reading the book, we talked about the colours that we could see, practising putting the colour before and after the noun. For example, I said that the nut was brown and that the squirrel was eating the brown nut. We used the pictures in the book as stimuli for discussions and to create our own stories. We had some fun imagining what the frog’s letter might say, especially as Betty is beginning to develop her weird sense of humour. “Dear Frog, There’s a poo in your pants, From Bear, hahahaha!”

(EYFS: Communication & Language and Literacy)

On our nature walk, we took a tick list of colours and as we walked, we identified the colours and ticked them off. We photographed everything that we found for Betty’s nature journal. We also collected some items to sort out when we got home.

(EYFS: Understanding the World, Literacy, Mathematics)

We noticed whilst we were out that some of the leaves on the trees were beginning to change colour so when we got home, we created some autumn tree paintings, experimenting with different painting tools such as fingerprints and cotton wool buds. We also spent some time playing with the paint, mixing the colours and generally just smearing it everywhere!

(EYFS: Understanding the World, Expressive Arts & Design)

 

We were lucky enough to see a rainbow occurring naturally, otherwise you can create a rainbow in the garden using a garden hose. The children loved singing about and painting rainbows. We also read about rainbows in Betty’s new book about weather.

(EYFS: Understanding the World, Communication & Language, Literacy, Expressive Arts & Design)

Betty's Nature Journal

We will be using Betty’s nature journal for her to record the things that we do each week. She is beginning to write labels (Literacy: Writing 40-60 months) so we will continue this and her next steps will be to start writing some simple sentences. 

Minibeasts

This week, we have continued to follow the Exploring Nature with Children curriculum. The theme was minibeasts.

We started off by thinking of minibeasts and describing them. We had a hunt in the garden and found woodlice, spiders, daddy-long-legs, flies, earthworms, slugs and snails. We walked around the village to continue our hunt and saw ladybirds, ants and a butterfly. We also found leaves that had been nibbled.

(EYFS: Communication and Language, Understanding the World, Physical Development)

We set all of the creatures free, discussing why they should be set free and where they might go. Would they go back to their families, perhaps? We talked about how delicate the creatures were and how mindful we should be of this as it is cruel to hurt them.

(EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development)

We used the munched up leaf as the stimulus to read Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I had printed off a picture of the life cycle of a butterfly for us to colour in. I compared this to the ages of a person. I showed Betty some drawings of a person at different stages of their life (from baby to elderly) and I asked Betty (who’s almost four) to put them into order.

(EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Literacy Development)

Whilst Louie was asleep, the girls (Betty and a little girl that I child mind) enjoyed making caterpillars. I always save paper – wrapping paper, catalogues, magazines, the phone book, and junk mail – for crafts. I cut out circles from various things. (I would have let them do the cutting but I couldn’t find the kids’ scissors and mine are super sharp!) The girls looked through the circles looking for interesting patterns and colours and stuck them onto their sheets to make caterpillars. I extended this by starting patterns and asking them what would come next.

(EYFS: Expressive Arts and Design, Mathematics)

Today, we have had lots of rain showers so we visited the library to find books that featured minibeasts and looked at both fiction and non-fiction. Then, we visited the natural history section of the local museum to have a look at their collections of minibeasts.

(EYFS: Communication & Language, Literacy, Understanding the World)

This afternoon, we really enjoyed reading Norman the Slug with a Silly Shell. I drew some slugs and the children drew and painted a shell for the slugs.

(EYFS: Literacy, Expressive Arts and Design)

Seeds

I am going to use some of the themes from ‘Exploring Nature with Children’ to inspire me and give me some more ideas of things that I can do with the children. Obviously, some of the activities are aimed at older children, so I will be explaining how I’ve adapted them to suit littlies and how they will meet the EYFS. Some of the topics we’ll probably miss, such as the night ones.

This week is seed week. I wasn’t sure how engaged the children would be but actually, we all enjoyed it more than I expected.

I cut up an apple for their snack and then used the pips from the apple as the ‘hook’. We read Eric Carle’s The Tiny Seed which Betty quite enjoyed but the younger ones got bored with which wasn’t a great start! We went into the garden to look for seeds. Again, Betty was interested but the younger ones were quickly distracted by a muddy puddle.

Our next activity was much more successful. I had bought some cress seeds so we put some toilet paper into empty yoghurt pots and sprinkled water onto it. Then we sprinkled the cress seeds in. All of the children really enjoyed this and were engaged. We put napkins into jars, wet them and put runner beans into the jars. We talked about how seeds need water and sunlight to grow. They are now on the windowsill – hopefully, they’ll grow!

We went for a walk around the village looking for seeds. The younger children were much more interested in the seeds now and we got quite a haul! They were absolutely fascinated by the seed pods and asked me to break open a couple to see all of the tiny seeds inside. And our conversation about seed dispersal and animals pooping out seeds was greeted with much hilarity.

I have seen some other lovely activities on Pinterest that, if I’d been a bit more organised, looked like fun, including seed sorting and seed art.

EYFS:

We spent a lot of time talking about the seeds, where they are found and what they are for. This supports children’s communication and language development and helps their understanding of the world. I extended this for Betty by teaching her vocabulary such as seed pod, pips, burrs, burst and drifts.

We compared the different sizes of the seeds and the talked about the amount of seeds promoting numeracy development.

We read The Tiny Seed, developing literacy skills.

Picking up the seeds and sprinkling them meant that children needed to use their fine motor skills, supporting their physical development. 

Spiders' Webs

Today, we found a humongous spider web in the garden! We really enjoyed looking closely at it and then having a go at drawing it. Then we coloured them in, creating a piece of abstract art. I noticed that Betty's pencil control is getting really good. There's no need to print off or buy books of 'pencil control exercises' - just encourage children to draw! 

Blackberries

Today, we have celebrated Betty’s first day of not going to school/pre-school by doing lots of fun things. She has had a swimming lesson. We have been to Gladstone Pottery Museum where we learned about our local history, watched someone throw a pot and had a go at painting a pot ourselves. (EYFS: Understanding the World and Expressive Arts and Design) All this by lunch time!

After lunch, we went for a walk in the woods and picked blackberries. We didn’t find very many at first. They seem to have appeared really early this year and are now past their best. They’re also full of bugs – yuk! But we persevered and ended up finding enough.

Once we’d got them home and given them a really good wash, we decided to make something with them. I thought it would be better if they’d been cooked, less germy! We made a crumble topping. We separated the blackberries into paper cupcake holders and then topped them with the crumble. Then we baked them in the oven.

                            

They were yummy! But, if you have any plastic cupcake holders, use them. The paper ones go a bit soggy.

For our bedtime story, we read The Blackberry Mouse from a lovely book called Springtime Tales which is a story about a mouse who wouldn’t share his blackberries. This a good story to initiate discussions about friendship and sharing.

EYFS:

Working collaboratively to pick the berries and make the cakes supports the children’s personal social and emotional development.

Talking about the berries and the crumble cakes promotes communication and language development.

Reading The Blackberry Mouse and using recipe books develops literacy skills.

Betty helped me to measure out ingredients which supports her numeracy development.  

Physical development is helped by tackling different surfaces outdoors.