Autumn is Here!

It is truly the season of “mellow mists and fruitfulness” and the garden continues to supply us with a bountiful supply of pears and apples. The horses expect us each morning and afternoon with the windfall apples and the children really enjoy watching them eat the apples which we gather from the ground in the orchard!September was a mixed bag of weather but whenever we could we made the journey down the field. Now,October has arrived  and the weather seems more settled  and Autumnal. The children are once again enjoying the little game that we play as we go down the lane: ” who can get me a beech leaf? who can find sycamore? touch the ash tree,can you find a fern?” As we have tree cards and tree jigsaws in the school, it is great to be able to relate our work to the real environment!Our nature table is laden with nuts , berries and leaves and the children can see the changing colours of the the leaves as Autumn will move into Winter.All too soon, Autumn will be over and our trees will have lost their leaves and gone for their long Winter sleep.

And its project time again! Our first project is Irish Mammals and wonderful work is arriving on a daily basis. Eamon was first in with “the red fox” and he even had a picture of himself holding a real fox!Joseph taught us about the 3 species of deer in Ireland and how to recognize them.  Ceola  also gave us great information on the badger and we learned about his lovely underground home called a sett!Lana Maye had beautiful drawings in her project of the red squirrel and we learned about the food he likes to eat. Saul too told us many facts which we didn’t know in his Seal project and his art work was really good.!Today, Harry Q  brought in his Dolphin project with beautiful drawings and we learned all about  “echolocation”!Cara also did the Irish Deer and her mummy helped with the great drawings and lovely writing.Moss  had a photo  of a hedgehog which visits his Aunty Marys garden every night and he has seen it so he had first hand information for his project. Umi  told us all about otters and this animal has always held a great fascination for me .We are learning so much and enjoying listening to each child tell us about his special animal!And there are more to come!! Thank you to Mums and Dads for wonderful work and for teaching us so much!There is some great artistic talent out there!