Remember September

AS summer gives way to early autumn, we set about updating our nature table with an apple theme. The tree was a collection of twigs that we decorated with felt leaves. The apples we made by wet-felting small balls of green and red wool. (Alexander found a new method for this - apparently saliva works as well as soap to aid the felting process.)

A painting of an apple orchard and needle-felted rabbit finished the scene, which I'm sure will be added to with various treasures found on walks throughout the month.



We found some great apple books at the library, including The Apple Pie That Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson, and The Apple King by Francesca Bosca, which I will bring to Emma's pre-school as a puppet story.

Finally, we learnt a new song for the month:

Remember September
by Marlys Swinger
(in Sing Through The Seasons)

Remember September; Before she said goodbye
She told the youngest robins the way they ought to fly.
Around the mountain's shoulder she spread a gypsy shawl,
And sent a breeze among the trees to sing about the fall.

Remember September; Before she went away
She taught the cricket fiddlers the proper tunes to play,
She gave a modest maple a dress of red and gold
And showed a mouse a little house to keep him from the cold.

Rainbows

IT all began with my taking a lesson in drawing with block crayons, trying to blend the three primary colours to make a rainbow. Rudimentary though the finished picture was, the colours were really quite beautiful. That got me noticing rainbows all around, and we've spent a fun week finding and creating rainbows of our own.

The hose was a great place to start on a hot, hot day, and delighted squeals accompanied a small thumb over the end of the hose as Emma sprayed all those in her path. Once the novelty of this wore off, she was intrigued to see a rainbow in the spray. The next afternoon we found rainbows in bubbles. At other times, we had fun dressing up with an item of every colour and chalked rainbow coloured paths on the patio to run on. The original crayon rainbow and a wet-on-wet watercolour painting of a rainbow became backdrops for a new colourful nature table, and we heard a lovely Native American tale "How The First Rainbow Was Made". At the end of the week, believe it or not it rained - while the sun shone bright in the sky. We were driving, and as I craned my neck at each traffic light, all Emma's response was: "You still looking for a rainbow, Mama?"

First Dabble

I finally got my feet wet in wet-on-wet watercolour painting, with a couple of classes organised by our local Waldorf Homeschoolers group. It was so much fun and I look forward to lots more practice before introducing the technique to Emma at some point. We started by exploring the colours and their relationship to one another.

Then we took a peek into the plant world. This began with blue water underneath and yellow light overhead, then finally red life blood linking the two together and forming green plants and brown roots.

Finally we delved into the animal kingdom. For our final piece, we were asked to choose an animal, and prepare its habitat using wet-on-wet. We then painted in the animal with a wet-on-dry technique. I wanted to paint something for our Easter/Spring nature table, but didn't want the typical chicks or bunnies, so I picked a scene showing the Owl Mother returning to her babies Sarah, Percy and Bill, from one of Emma's favourite books "Owl Babies".