Autumn windfall and leaf identification

On our walk home through the park this afternoon, Ro showed me the tree he had got some bark rubbings from (with school this morning).  He also chatted about taking some leaves back to the classroom.  As we walked through a patch of beech nuts, I picked one up and asked if he'd collected anything else? "no but I showed them all a beech nut shell mummy" (smiles).

So we made our own collection, one rule: only things on the ground were to be collected. We had quite a lovely hand posy of autumn treasures by the time we got home...on the playroom shelves...

With the intention of identifying the leaves...he also found some scattered pigeon feathers and rose petals...so they had to be included!

I thought this was interesting, an acorn embedded in something, I picked up a whole 'something' to investigate further. I still don't know what it is. Ro opened it and there looked like a tiny acorn cap inside, surely not???

Another lovely afternoon spent with my little man. Nx

DIY Sandpaper numerals

I made these sandpaper numbers in the summer holidays...

Print some numerals, cut them out, stick them to the back of a sheet of sandpaper (remembering to reverse them), cut them out carefully.

Put them in a safe place until you can get some board cut, paint the board (I used some green paint I had left over from the playroom).

Find your sandpaper letters (nope, couldn't find them! had to do all the above again grrr) and glue them centrally...voila...

They have been sat looking pretty, but unused on the playroom windowsill ever since...until this week...Ro playing with glass beads... 

Today I handed him our ever growing collection of autumn treasures, he happily counted seeds, leaves, cones etc. matching quantities to numbers...

and finally made a long trail of conkers, counting as he went 1, 2, 3...39, 80! He eventually ran out of conkers at 72...

I'm glad I made them, I knew they'd come in useful...and I found the missing sandpaper numbers today...Nx