The Wonder of Autumn at Children 1st Day Nurseries

Across Children 1st nurseries the children have been captivated by the wonder of Autumn and discovering the changes that are happening in the world around them as the season progresses.

Nature walks around the nurseries or in the park have enabled the children to make interesting collections of colourful leaves and Autumn’s wonderful harvest such as pumpkins, acorns, conkers, and pinecones.  Scrunching the dried leaves and finding fallen sticks all added to the magic of our Autumn walks. No wonder the children at Meir Park loved their stroll in the park!

At Toton, the season inspired some large-scale outdoor paintings of trees displaying bright Autumn colours.  On a smaller scale, the Benjamin Bunnies at Main Street used an assortment of tools and colours to add leaves to their trees.  Elsewhere, Syston used their leaf treasures to create some outdoor art by adding them to a large sticky framework and at Shepshed the brightly coloured leaves were used to decorate headbands and bracelets.

Autumn also featured in our indoor play with tuff spots transformed into discovery play areas full of seasonal natural objects for the children to handle and create with. Pumpkins are always such a source of wonder for the children.

For farmers, Autumn is such a busy time so we were very grateful to Beau’s dad at Buckinghams who came along in his tractor to help the children find out about the work done by these big machines and the work of the farmer. The children were thrilled to sit in the cab and have a good look around the machine.

Autumn is the season when harvest is celebrated and many nurseries welcome parents to join their special celebrations. The ‘Harvest Stay and Play’ at Hathern was enjoyed by Early Years and their parents who joined in with a range of activities. They enjoyed using the magnifying glasses to look at all the natural resources the children had collected over the past two weeks with their families while on walks. Meanwhile, Peter Rabbits at Hathern made gingerbread biscuits decorated with Autumn colours to take home as a treat.

Alongside their Harvest Festival activities, parents at Newark Town joined the children to have fun with playdough, painting and making autumnal sticky pictures. The climax of the event was sharing some delicious harvest soup and a great rendition of Old McDonald sung by Early Years.

Thank-you to everyone from our communities who give their time to share their skills and knowledge to help the children understand about the world around them. Your support is invaluable and your generous donations at harvest time for our food collections really help those in need in our communities.