Our bright idea - The colours of autumn

Staff at Rainbow Nursery, Middlestone Moor, are always keen to involve parents in children's activities, both within the nursery and at home.

During discussions, and through noticeboards and letters, we suggest different ways for parents to encourage their children to experience seasonal changes at home. Our display board in the entrance is an ideal place to provide stimulating visual and interactive opportunities to explore these changes together. Every year at this time we focus on the warm and vibrant colours of autumn and ensure access to a wide selection of autumn-related natural materials to see, touch, feel, smell and listen to.

Planned learning intentions
- To form good relationships with adults and peers
- To use talk to clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events
- To look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change
- To explore colour, texture, shape, form and space in two and three
dimensions

RESOURCES

Display board

Red backing paper; netting and fabric in autumn colours; posters and pictures showing autumn fruits and leaves, squirrels and hedgehogs; photographs of children planting bulbs; red, yellow and green paint and crayons; laminator; leaves; autumn fruits such as pine cones, conkers, ears of corn, ornamental corn cobs (some pet stores supply these), pumpkins; large branch; flower and fruit baskets made from natural materials; large pots in neutral colours; dried grasses; other resources provided by parents and children, such as ornamental squirrels and scarecrows.

Step by step

- We began by backing our display board with red paper and mounting the pictures and posters on top.

- We taped small boxes to the surface of a table under the board and draped them in autumn fabric to create a colourful and interesting surface for baskets and bowls filled with autumn fruits. Pots of dried grasses were arranged on the floor alongside the table.

- Photographs of an earlier bulb planting session were hung along the top of the display and we talked about how, when and why we plant bulbs.

- We discussed the content of our display so far with the children, and invited them to help us to develop it further with their artwork.

- The children had fun exploring colours, mixing red and yellow and discussing shades and colours emerging. They cut out rough leaf shapes, and handled leaves in the creative area. This led to leaf prints and rubbings. The children stuck leaves to black paper.

- We gathered the artwork together, mounted the leaf prints, rubbings and colour mixtures on black and attached these to the display board. We laminated the leaves on the black paper, cut them out and hung them to a large branch in front of the display. The largest sheet of leaves was left intact for the main board.

- Captions were added and 'colour' words were printed in the correct colour. Fabric was draped down one side of the board, along with a long branch full of particularly colourful leaves.

- Parents explored the display with their children and soon began to provide interesting additions, while outdoor play and walks with nursery staff motivated the children to search for things to bring indoors to put on the table.

- The children were highly motivated by 'their display'. Exciting language relating to seasonal changes, senses and colour emerged.

Karen Crawford is the nursery manager at Rainbow Nursery, Middleston Moor, Co Durham. She spoke to Jean Evans. You can e-mail Jean your Bright Ideas at fun.begin@ntlworld.com, for the chance to win £30 of books.