Our Nature Tray and walk (Part 1)

I love the Autumn it is official before having Little Boo I would not have said this.  However, it is amazing when having a child how your outlook suddenly changes with certain things.  The dark nights, even though cold are a great excuse to snuggle up and read some books, the bad weather has turned us to cooking more (encouraging me to learn) as we need indoor activities. Then on the days the weather is not too bad it is a fine opportunity to splash in the muddy puddles, crunch in the leaves, look for wildlife and hunt for the prettiest leaf.

This is why I considered making a Nature tray.  When at school I can remember having a nature table. However, not having the room in our house for this I turned to making a nature tray less room required and it is portable.  The nature tray is actually a very cheap cat litter tray (do not worry it has never been used for this purpose) this tray has come in so useful for loads of activities and was only £1.99!

We collected the items on many nature walks (do not worry you will probably get some funny looks I know that we have).  The walk itself turned into a wonderful learning experience as Little Boo was talking about everything that she was seeing, smelling and hearing.  She loved feeling the fir trees that we came across.  We had a lengthy conversation about whether we could find Tree Fu Tom, needless to say we tried to find him but could not.  She started to suggest leaves that we should pick because they were, "pretty ones"  as well as finding the odd muddy puddle to jump in! Wellies are a great suggestion and a change of clothes :) Little Boo decided that she also wanted to hug trees something that made me laugh so of course she did it even more! all this fun and we did not have to pay anything, great!

A very brave squirrel coming to say hello 

For the nature tray we have loads of items we collected from our walks.   I have included printed activities that we can enjoy together that are Autumn inspired.  Here is where I got them from

Autumn photograph cards with this resource I just printed it smaller so that I could make cards instead of posters.  We have been using these to play matching games and used them to match with the items in the nature tray

Matching up the conker to the conkers card. 

So far We have only been able to find part of an acorn! 

Autumn counting sheet  Little Boo did really well with this worksheet.  I have placed the worksheet inside a plastic wallet and encouraged her to mark off as she counts them. I then help her to write the number.  The great thing is that the white board marker rubs off after so the sheet can be used many times.  This I found is a cheaper alternative to laminating or printing out the worksheet many times.

Autumn masks These masks are brilliant for playing with.  There is a hedgehog and a red and grey squirrel. Little Boo could not wait to play with them.

Autumn number trace  Again I have printed these smaller so that there were four to a page. I have laminated these and Little Boo has a white board marker to trace them.

Autumn colour in  Hopefully you all saw this link on the facebook page.  There are some lovely Autumn inspired colouring pages.

Autumn Leaves  These have been used to learn colours.  I have been encouraging Little Boo to hop skip and Jump to the colours that I say.  She then calls out the instructions for me and I get a mini work out as well!

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and that it has inspired you to go on a nature walk.

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