At the start of each academic year the children are observed as they play and take part in various activities to see where their interests lie. Then, as professionals, we plan educational activities to extend their learning through these interests. Soon after the start of the term the Role Play area was a kitchen/home and, as the days progressed, the children started to adapt the area and create ‘picnics’. They travelled to the venues in a rocket, a boat or a submarine (adapted cardboard boxes).

While discussing picnics with the children, they came up with the idea of creating an autumn wood with a campsite, where animals could be spied on, where nights could be spent under canvas and sausages cooked over a campfire. This necessitated a great deal of planning by the children. Books featuring woods were pored over, a list of equipment had to be written out, measuring took place to ensure the backing paper was the correct length and height and then the fun began. Having looked at the wonderful colours autumn produces some children mixed primary colours to try and replicate them, others mixed coloured cornflour splodge to make a variety of blues for the sky and then green, for the grass, before spreading it over a run of tables in order to take a large print.

The children each painted their own tree to stick to the background varying in height from 30cm – 1m+. Sponges were cut into leaf shapes and used to print leaves onto the trees. Other leaves were created by doing rubbings of real leaves with wax crayons on tracing paper cut out and glued on to make them look as if they were falling from the trees. The children created logs for the camp fire by twisting newspaper and covering it in tissue paper. Later, a torch would be placed underneath to make it look as if the fire were alight! The environment was set, so now the animals were needed. You would be surprised at what might live in our woods! Hedgehogs, squirrels, (red and grey), foxes, mice etc. all appeared, made out of recycled materials. With the addition of some extras, play began. The children used their binoculars, made from cardboard tubes, tissue and cellophane to search for birds and animals and recorded their findings on clipboards. That is when a tiger was spotted as well as dinosaur fossils. Reading was done in the tent, by torch light, before meals were cooked on the campfire and shared with the dolls and teddy bears. To complement all this fun, the children listened to traditional and contemporary stories featuring autumn, woodland animals and woods e.g. Percy the Park Keeper, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Red Riding Hood. During music the children sang If you go Down to the Woods Today and other songs featuring woods. This wood may even sprout a Christmas tree in the next week or two and, fingers crossed, some SNOW in the New Year.