Nature, Autumn, Trees

Autumn is upon us!! I have talked about seasons with the kids, read books about the seasons, we do a weather chart everyday, where we talk about clothing, temperature, & climate... but the Season's are always elusive. I haven't found a concrete way of getting them to understand that there are 4 seasons, even if our winter is not really winter in my book :)...
So... my neighbor, Tracy, student taught last year and the teacher she worked with had this great idea to "adopt" a tree for the year. They pick one out, look at it, touch it, discuss & analyze it, photograph it, & draw it. I decided that this may be just the right thing for us. We have a small nature area in our community, within walking distance, where we can go and SEE first hand how the season's effect "our" tree. Since it was the first day of Autumn this past week, it was a perfect day to start.

Here is OUR tree... Very large, lots of leaves, & we can all get under it and make lots of wonderful memories there.

Hum... what could that green stuff be? Let's go find out....

We all decided to lie down on our backs and take a different look at our tree... What do you see??

Em: "Lot's of leaves"

B: "Yeah, I see leaves and branches"

R: "No, sticks. I see sticks and leaves"

It was nice to get a different perspective of something, that even at such a young age we take for granted the beauty of.

Here they are celebrating their tree... How exciting!

We continued talking about Autumn, how we think Our tree will change and why. We made our first of, I hope, many drawings of our tree. Next week, we will begin gathering the more factual information about our tree. What kind is it, how old do we think it is, what does it need to grow, etc... The kids are very excited to be outside, learn about this new tree, and about all the different things they find at the nature area. I am hoping this will help them to start getting acquainted with seasons... So when they go off to Kindergarten they can really start to make those connections that we have been paving the way for. I can't believe how big & smart they are becoming... but that's for another day!!! More photo's from our week later in the weekend... now off to bed!!!