The natural beauty of autumn leaves and fall harvests continue to impact our early learners as we explore, create, and imagine outdoors in our forest and school garden. As a way to integrate children’s fascinations with all that comes with autumn our team has co-created some intentional learning explorations that also connect to our student’s developing math and literacy skills. These experiences have flowed from the questions and ideas that our learners have shared naturally. Children have been able to share their understandings through their interactions with materials, other children, and educators. As educators, we have sought to understand and capture children’s thinking. The photograph below shows documentation placed as a part of the learning environment which then became another important piece to interact with and possibly extend or challenge previous thinking.
Leaf Patterning Exploration with book inspiration, “Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf” by Lois Elhert. We’ve been rephrasing questions we ask children to encourage more open opportunities for them to demonstrate their understanding.
Representing Numbers with Acorns: This exploration invited children to order and represent numbers to 5. We wrote dot patterns on the other side of the wood cookies as a way to build deeper understanding around value with subitizing.
Autumn Storytelling and Transient Art: “Leaf Man” by Lois Elhert is a wonderful story that inspired children to create a leaf man with leaves. We also invited children to create other animals, imagine, and share stories about these forest friends both oral and written.
Oats and Leaves Fall Sensory: Included are stones and wood cookies with students names to encourage name recognition. We also added various measurement cups and scoops for some authentic learning around measurement.
Harvest Measurement: Again, we changed the prompt to “Tell us about your measuring” instead of “Can you measure”. This idea developed as a way to observe understanding and potential misconceptions. Children found these wonderful pumpkins and gourds tangled in the vines in our garden. They used mathematical language describing size(i.e., “Look how big mine is!” and “This one is the longest!”). This communicated to us, the educator team, that the children were fascinated with size. So, we decided to provide the children with opportunities to demonstrate their understanding around measurement with intentional materials with non-standard units of measure.
Comparing and Measuring Leaves: This roll of chalkboard paper has been wonderful for creating organizational tools similar to graphic organizers. We found it at the dollar store and it’s sticky on the reverse side and adheres nicely to a table or wall. The children found leaves outdoors on a scavenger hunt, used the ID cards to identify them, and compared their lengths and sizes.
Roll or Flip and Represent Numbers with Leaves: My teaching partner found these little cutting boards and tiles at Dollarama. Voila! Instant 10 frame. Children were encouraged to flip a card or roll the dice and represent that number on the 10 frame.
Sunflower Loose Parts: Children were able to manipulate and experiment as they explored the shape and design of sunflowers grown in our school garden. What plant species are native to your school’s community that your students can investigate?
Fall Leaves Transient Art on Reflective Mirrors: We love the way neon bright markers are washable and come off surfaces like mirrors. This has got us thinking about what other surfaces can we write on.
Five Frame with Rocks and Leaf Gems(from Dollarama): Five frames are brilliant for helping children develop a strong sense of fiveness. The picture frames are from Ikea and we put dried leaves in them for children to have a closer look.
Dramatic Play Farmer’s Market Wood Cookies: We just love our wood cookies that the children made from old grocery store flyers and Modge Podge. They have been useful all year round with opportunities to connect both literacy and math. We should note that they are awesome for both indoor and outdoor play. How about in the mud kitchen?
Leaf Letter Match: We were donated some scraps of fabric that my teaching partner cut out to use as an organizational tool for letter matching with leaves from the dollar store.
Some considerations
- What questions, theories, and ideas do children have?
- How do these children like to represent their curiosities and creativity?
- How can we support math and literacy in these interests?
- How can we be responsive to other learning that may arise?
- How can we nurture children’s disposition towards learning?
- In what ways will we make visible and celebrate learning stories with families and our class?
- How can we support extending children’s thinking?
- How will the educators be co-researchers and reflect on children’s learning?
- What learning goals or curriculum expectations may arise from these explorations?
- How can we nurture children’s relationship and interactions with the natural world?
Hoping that you’re all having a wonderful fall and that you get a chance to slow down and enjoy watching some leaves turn.
inspired by play 