Autumn & Harvest Unit Round Up

Rich colours, kicking leaves, muddy wellies, howling winds, hooting owls, foraging for nuts, throwing sycamore seeds, slow cooked stews, corn reaching for the sky, pumpkins on every doorstep, chilly breezes and snuggling under blankets.
We loved Autumn.

I spread this unit over a long period, just about 2 months, and considering i have been in increasingly poorer and poorer health, and have encountered other challenges, plus a lovely short holiday away, i think we have maintained relatively good flow.

I will break down what we have involved in this unit in blocks of content types so its a little easier to navigate the mass!

KEY SPEECH AND VISUAL RECOGNITION

Squirrel learned to recognise and/or say/sign LEAF, TREE, PUMPKIN, CORN, WOOD, TOADSTOOL, NUT, COLD, CONKER, OWL, FOX, SQUIRREL, OTTER, RABBIT, BROWN, RED, GREEN, PURPLE, BLUE, YELLOW, BROCCOLI, CARROT.

 

BOOKS
We enjoyed these superb books alongside our theme, encouraging words spoken and visual recognition of the various animals and objects that are so heavily repeated through Autumnal activities. I meant to get hold of The Scarecrows Wedding but I never got around to you. Bah.

We had a great fortnight dedicated to The Gruffalo, which you can read about in its separate round up, which involved a Gruffalo Hunt, Scrambled Snake Sensory & Lunch and a magnificently exciting Gruffalo Small World.

 

TV TIME

We also enjoyed relaxing with lots of youtube videos of documentaries on squirrels, foxes, deer and owls, while also watching BBCs Autumnwatch, which follows nature in Britain live over a week- we love it!

 

BUSY BOY TRAYS

Our busy boy trays, those activities that are easy to whip out to fill moments in need regularly while maintaining our theme for some learning consistency went down very well.

We laminated some leaves and created a collection of activities using them including CRAYON LEAF RUBBING, THREADING, COLOUR MATCHING, LIGHT BOX WINDOW OBSERVATION and CHALK TEMPLATING.
You can explore them further here.

We also enjoyed sorting conkers into variously spaced trays with tools and fingers.

Playdough Time!

Playing with felt vegetables with various tools and containers.

 

Squirrel really enjoyed THREADING and SORTING these cute little leaf buttons!

 

 

I made him a ‘Fiddle Stick’ which was two tough sticks wound together with twine; Squirrel would spend handsy time unraveling and twisting the twine together, great LOGIC and FINE MOTOR practice.

 

We would occasionally turn our lunch into leaves!

 

And a spot of delicious creature dress up and role play!

 

BIG ACTIVITIES

We thoroughly loved painting with vegetables out in the sunshine. We turned our painting into apple bunting for our display at home and our friends Sukkot Party.

We made Squirrel Soup! Imaginative play and sensory mess turned up to 11!

Transferring leaves! Such crunchy, interesting sensations! Plus we made beautiful Squirrel nests!

Bubblewrap Corn! Awesome, am i right?

We experimented with finding and RECOGNISING AND MAKING LINES in the garden with foraged things.

We explored and deconstructed ears of corn, most exciting!

Harvest Produce freestyle play was so great; he explored so thoroughly and did such unexpected and brilliant things with it all!

Pumpkin Deconstruction was a squishy, sensory, seedy adventure, where Squirrel loved sorting the seeds and sniffing!

We made this beautiful Pumpkin Orb and Leaf Crown!

VISITS

We spent as much time out and about as my poorly legs could manage, walking in the woods, watching sunsets, visiting owls and deer at the local farm and falconry attraction, farm shops with harvest festivals, foraging marvelous things, playing with natures offerings, puddle jumping and getting pretty muddy indeed!

Of our various visits and walks I covered our Farm Shop trip.

 

I hope you are enjoying your beautiful Autumn as much as we are!

Magic Water Play with Gellibaff

I picked up this product way, way back. Once we had decided to start educating Squirrel at home, I started picking up little bargains that rang little tunes of educational play in my head, and this product GelliBaff was one of those. It boasts being 100% safe to skin, non irritant and non staining, and safe to go down the plug hole, and it looked like great fun to me, let alone Squirrel! So at a very cheap price, well below even the RRP, I grabbed it, and knew it would go down well as part of this unit. I was so-ho right.

We used:

1 pack of Gelli Baff (Blue colour changing to purple variety)
Our small water table.
A wooden spoon.
A mop (trust me.)
Octopus!

We started by filling a couple of large bottles with water, and pouring in the first sachet (there are two, and according to directions, one turns the water into goo when you pour them together and stir, and the other turns it back to water and into a different colour!)
Squirrel, though armed with the wooden spoon, gave it straight to Daddy and went in with the hands, naturally!

Oh crikey, this kid just loved the stuff. Plenty of squidging and squelching with his fists, stirring with his spoon and scooping and plopping the goo.
Octopus was always going to get involved. I mean, this is prime octopus play stuff. He had fun!

He was covered and dunked and used for scooping…

 See? One happy cephalopod.

One happy Squirrel, too!

Eventually, we added the other sachet, and let Squirrel stir it in, and before our very eyes, it turned purple, and eventually turned back to (albeit lumpy) water.

I’m not going to lie, folks. Once your toddler realises how much fun it is to clap with handfuls of it and watch it go EVERYWHERE… you kinda wish you had thought about doing it in the garden.

But where there are willing volunteers in the shape of a kid-who-loves-mops and an octopus who is happily dunked in just about anything, there is always a contented means to messy activity clean up time.

This is an activity post for Unit 1. The Seaside & Rockpools.

(This activity is not endorsed by Gellibaff.)