Autumn has arrived at Douces Maternelles!

 

“…all the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down…

…all the leaves are falling down, now it’s Autumn…”

 

There’s a chill in the air, the sun is setting earlier and earlier, and the bright blues, greens and pinks are gradually making way for the warm oranges, browns and reds… Autumn has arrived at Douces Maternelles!

 

Over the past month, the children have been able to use a wide variety of natural resources to further develop their understanding of the world around them, as well as using these elements in their cognitive workshops every morning. We began with conducting nature observations during our daily outings, and asking the children what they could notice around them, what was changing, and the different colours that they could see.

 

 

We then brought many of these natural resources into the classroom – pieces of wood, leaves, sticks, pine cones, chestnuts, seeds… the classroom soon began to look like an autumnal wonderland (just like in Frozen 2, as many of the students remarked!) The children were then encouraged to interact with these elements, as we incorporated them into our daily workshops.

 

 

Let’s count the leaves together! How many leaves are yellow, and how many are brown? What shapes can you see? How many different colours can we see? In particular during the Discovery classes, we went into detail about the changing weather, the drop in the temperature, the change from sunny days to cloudy, rainy days, and how to appropriately dress for the seasons. The children were invited to use and manipulate the autumn elements to create images based on the vocabulary that we had covered, as well as creating images and stories from their own imagination.

 

 

This has also been a great opportunity for the children to further develop their English vocabulary, particularly the colours, parts of the tree, the seasons, and the weather.

 The end of October brought the holidays and Halloween, with the students delighting in recounting their vacation activities, and participating in spooky Halloween activities at school. And as autumn continues and we draw closer to winter, everyone is wondering… will there be snow?