~ Autumnal Equinox ~

Celebrating the Autumnal Equinox is super fun. I love the smell of approaching rain, the kite-worthy afternoons, the occasional gray skies, the cooling air, the harvest, the food possibilities, and most of all, the colors. It has taken me nearly a week now to share with you a glimpse of our celebration, but here it is.

 The boys and I sang some Autumn related songs at circle time and did a brief Autumn meditation to welcome the changing of the season and to renew ourselves, for the equinox is a time of new beginnings.

I was going to have Jared do this project, but it was more tedious than I had originally thought, so I decided to make these Autumn leaf spirits, inspired by the Magic Onion. I cut out leaves from wool felt, sewed on wooden beads with thread, glued wool roving for hair and acorn hats for fairy caps, and when dry, I hung them up with wool yarn.

Dylan and Jared painted some wet on wet watercolors, exploring the varying shades created when using red and yellow. Dylan's painting became the leaves for Jared's thankful tree below.

With my help, Dylan was able to gather and design this Autumn mobile above the boys' nature table.

And here is the nature table, set up by Jared who wanted to ensure a degree of symmetry. The corn on the table is Red Murieta corn from our garden. And below the table is a book basket, also inspired by the Magic Onions. We gathered our favorite fall time stories and placed them in this basket. Included are:

Autumn   by Gerda Muller

Woody, Hazel, and Little Pip   by Elsa Beskow

Around the Year   by Elsa Beskow

Christopher's Harvest Time   by Elsa Beskow

Thunder Cake   by Patricia Polacco

Mother Earth and Her Children   by Sibylle Von Olfers

In the Woods   by Cristini and Puricelli

Oh What A Thanksgiving   by Steven Kroll

The Ghost-Eye Tree   by Martin and Archambault

The Changing Seasons   Grange Books

Homemade play dough play is a necessity in autumn colors, of course.

Jared was working on his calendar. He was focusing on festivals primarily at the end of September through the beginning of December.

Jared's Thankful Tree. He painted the sky with red and yellow, and the earth with blue and yellow, then placed all the finished leaves of thankfulness in their place on the branches. He said he didn't want any of the thankful leaves to have fallen to the ground, hence their sole placement in the tree. My favorite are the little leaves that symbolize our values. He did a fantastic job!

Carrots from the garden! Oh, I love the harvest!

Corn! We yielded corn!!!! I am so trying again next year, even though they aren't that large, I still cannot believe we were actually able to harvest corn from our backyard!

And, surely, we had to bake some harvest bread with sunflower and poppy seeds. We love baking bread around here. :)

So, how was your transition into the harvest season? .......or the spring season, for those of you in the southern hemisphere. Did you let it pass you by without notice, or have you looked around and noticed subtle changes? Enjoy the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the season. Have a fantastic Autumn!!

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