The changing of colors this month has been impressive! The kids have been noticing and pointing out how they have changed from green to yellow, melon, red, and brown. They have loved piling up the leaves and “selling” them in their shops. The Sprouts have also loved to run through the leaves and try to catch them as they are falling. The biggest excitement of this month has been that they are welcome to go into the boundary and knock down or play in the dying plants. The Sprouts have really enjoyed sliding down hills into the plants or running through them and getting “stuck.” After getting “stuck,” a friend comes with a stick for them to hold onto and rescues them. I have seen some of the students get braver and try new bigger movements like climbing on logs and jumping off or seeing how high or how long they can stay on the slackline.
There have been several weather predictions being made during Nature Notes, some like to guess if it is going to rain, or be windy, or if it will turn from cloudy to sunny. They point out clouds and say what they think they look like. Some things were a dragon, a lion, and ice cream. Another thing that the kids love watching and laughing about is the leaf tornados and leaf rain, which is when the wind blows down lots of leaves at once, or blows them up in a shape like a tornado.
They have noticed that there are fewer black walnuts on the ground, so they have been busy gathering the ones that are left and playing with them. They have been using chalk to color the black walnuts, and they have been continuing to pretend they are eggs. Another big imagination game that has taken place most of the month is pretending to be groundhogs. They noticed a live groundhog running through the hill, and that just sparked their imagination. They have been groundhog families, played Frozen, and been all of the characters from the movie, only in groundhog form. They gathered leaves and sticks and cooked them on pretend fires they made and fed the pretend groundhog friends.
I have enjoyed watching the kids learn and play and observe the changes around Farmstead as it turns from summer to fall. I can’t wait to see what new games and observations they come up with next month!