At Oaklea, we consciously choose to celebrate Autumn rather than Halloween. But why?
Autumn offers so many rich learning opportunities for children to explore. Is there anything more satisfying than stomping through a huge pile of crunchy leaves and watching them fly as you kick through them? Or the beautiful colour changes as leaves fall off the trees? Or the delicious smell of freshly made pumpkin soup with ‘hedgehog’ bread? We have enjoyed a book given to us by a family about the life cycle of an acorn and even had a very friendly squirrel help itself to our tray of conkers! These are just some of the things that our Oaklea children have been exploring.
We passionately believe that the outdoors should inspire awe and wonder and certainly not fear. We want children to show fascination in the spider’s web they found in the garden and the beauty it beholds as the sun glistens through it rather than being led to believe that spiders are ‘scary’. Let’s do pumpkin printing and then use the pumpkin shell as a bird feeder, rather than add to landfill. Let’s celebrate how incredible are natural environment is instead of creating fear and anxiety. What will you discover this Autumn?
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