October is quite an exciting month. Its the month when Autumn is in full swing and the ground becomes covered in crunchy colourful leaves that we all like to throw and play with. Here at Edinburgh park the children have been out in their gardens exploring all the leaves that have landed on the ground. At first it was just a few but now the ground is covered so much so that both the toddlers and Dragonflies have started to rake the leaves up and place in a bag for collection by the gardeners on their next visit. Each room has been doing a number of different activities to foster the children's interest in Autumn. Preschool have been looking at why do the leaves change colour and have discovered that this is because the leaf stops producing chlorophyll which makes the leaf the colour green. The children gathered leaves from the garden to use in the different activities in the room from collages to comparing sizes of the leaves. Toddlers made a texture board with their leaves for all to explore and feel and talked about vegetables that grow in the autumn to name a few of the activities. Dragonflies had leaves in their tuft tray for the children to feel as younger children are more sensory and enjoy feeling the things they are learning about. they have also been throwing them about in their garden. The babies have been about walking in their garden amongst the leaves listening to the sounds they make and some have also gone on a walk to the duck pond looking at the different coloured trees surrounding our nursery area. So as you can see it has been a colourful month but its not quite finished yet as we celebrate Halloween for the next week this should. I know the dragonflies have already started preparing for this by making creepy spiders so watch out as the Edinburgh Park Ghosts begin to play and we say good night to Autumn and Hello to Winter.