October clean up in the garden

Monday 10th, Tuesday 11th  and Wednesday12th of October it rained continuously. The children are working well  and have settled in to school life..”normalisation” is occuring…Three of the boys arrive and immediately put on their aprons and take out the polishing baskets, another child grates the soap for washing the dusters, a group of girls chat as they settle into doing an inset. Already, they are producing beautiful work and admire each others.Someone asks me to help them with a set of matching cards,(the garden birds are still a favourite) and within minutes a group of boys joins the table. New work is now being introduced on a daily basis and school is hub of activity.

Thursday 13th,the sun has re appeared,the sky is blue and its warm..We celebrate the fine weather and have an outdoor day.We start by having a “scent” walk and stop by the herb bed.The children really enjoy this and    I start by picking parsley and asking each one to smell it and then name it.We talk about how we use it in cooking and then move on and do the same with chamomile, thyme, mint,lemon balm , lavender and rosemary.The herbs are gathered in a basket and will be brought into school  for further work and will use them in smelling jars.We gather leaves for leaf compost, weed beds and do a general Autumn clean up.We also talk about the wonderful work that the little worm is doing,munching up old leaves and plants and making into delicious compost which will be ready for our little seeds in the Spring.    What a wonderful morning..we even have our snack outdoors. A game of football ,hide and go seek and hide the ball are all part of a special day.