Autumn Arrives

Have you noticed leaves changing color?  While I still have some summer garden flowers around, they aren’t looking very good.  I know it’s time to change geraniums for hardy mums, but I just hate to do it, for me this is the true end of summer.

But then… apples are everywhere and the air gets crisp and cool.  There is a beautiful tree in our back yard heavy with black walnuts & my favorite orange sweater is back from the cleaners.   It’s Fall!

• Weather changes quickly. Check to be sure that children’s sweatshirts and jackets still fit, are clean and ready to wear.  For that matter check on snowsuits and boots!

• Protect children and yourself from cold and flu season; get flu shots.
• It’s a great time to clean the garage before the weather gets wild. Children like this job.
• Organizing the shelves, sorting through the summer’s gardening and picnic supplies and gathering flip flops to make room for boots is great learning and fun.
• Look through fall magazines and catalogs with young children. This simple activity provides learning in so many ways; conversations about weather, seasonal changes in clothes, activities, colors & foods, and ways that people and animals adjust to this new season.  Cutting pictures out to make fall collages and books is a wonderful way to embrace the fall!

• Spend a day walking through crunchy leaves and collecting pine cones and acorns. Rake the back yard – help a neighbor with theirs.  Hang bird feeders to help feathered friends.  Dig in the garden when the weather is rainy and cold; it is so much different than summer when dirt is dry and dusty!

• Children learn best when their whole body is “busy”. Check out some great apple crisp and caramel apples recipes at food.com .   Pick some apples, make your shopping list and put your little ones to “work” in the kitchen – they love it!

• Show children squirrel nests and walnut trees against a cloudy sky.  Visit a pumpkin patch and farm to see who can find the heaviest, roundest, orangest… pumpkin. Listen for the wind and make up fall songs.  Smell cinnamon, nutmeg and buttered squash!

• Go to the Library where there are wonderful Fall Book displays, shelves of beautiful books for all ages, activities and author studies. This is a terrific time of year to explore nature every way possible.  buffalolib.org

“Autumn paints with colors that summer has never seen.”       George Elliott