Playing with Autumn

Autumn is probably the most beautiful of seasons. Of course, every season is beautiful in its own way, but the colours of autumn, especially a sunny and warm one like ours, are simply enchanting.

During one of our rare walks, I collected a bunch of natural objects fallen from the trees - leaves, seeds, twigs, galls, acorns, conkers - and topped it up by som snail shells and other nice things from the garden.

Do you remember when you were little and used to make little animals and people out of conkers and matches? We did it almost every year - I remember lots of hedgehogs, some people and even a giraffe with a long stick for a neck. After many many years, I tried it again and it was even more fun, as I could use all the sharp instruments myself!

A hedgehog

A dog with a gall for a head

An ant

A man with a snail-shell hat

Collecting Ideas

I'm not up to much these days. I started a new little job in the afternoons (thank goodness at least for that), but I still spend most of my days in the garden, watering what's left of my vegetables or just observing the critters that live in there and enjoying th lovely sunny autumn that we are having. I am still hoping to get emplozed as a teacher or teaching assistant, but in the meantime, I keep dazdreaming about having my own little biology club for little children one day. And since there are so many ideas in my head, I started writing them down, which turned out to be really good fun.

I have also become a member of Surrey libraries in Woking and I got some pretty good books from there, too. Their "Science" and "Natural World" sections are very rich in good books, including some of which we heard about at the university, which really surprised me. However, I only want to mention one today : Kids in the Wild Garden by Elizabeth McCoquodale. It is written for children, so it is fairly simple, but there are some nice ideas and really great pictures. I can just see myself showing some little people the beauty of growing runnerbeans and observing earthworms :)

Do you know about some good source of information for hands-on or inquiry-based educational activities in the garden? If you'd like to share them, please post in the "Comments" area.