As the seasons change, we’ve been talking a lot about Autumn. Our walks have involved a lot of looking at things and picking up things, and noticing the change of colours and so on. It really is a very beautiful time of year, and I do love it. I just wish it wasn’t followed by winter!
I’ve been meaning for months to make a Season Tree for Ameli, but it just hasn’t happened, and when I tried to laminate some summer leaves, my laminator objected strongly.
I didn’t try it again with brittle autumn leaves, deciding to buy some fake leaves instead.
For the Season Tree we used:
- Green Metalic Paper* on corrugated cardboard
- Foam* for the trunk
- Autumn Leaves*
- Velcro* Tabs
Putting the tree together is an exercise in going with the flow really. I glued the paper to the corrugated board to give it strength but also to give it texture.
I then cut a tree trunk and branches out of foam and glued them to the paper.
Next step was to cut blocks from the Velcro, which Ameli separated to stick the hooks on to the leaves, while I stuck the loops onto the leaves – whichever way round you do this doesn’t really matter, but keep it consistent so that when you change the leaves in winter, spring and summer, you always have the one type there already and the other on the leaves.
I added the text ‘My’ and ‘Tree’ to the top of the page and then wrote ‘autumn’ (fall), ‘winter’, ‘spring’ and ‘summer’ on another piece of paper which I then laminated. You don’t have to do that, of course, but we did. We Velcroed those too, so Ameli can change that when we change the leaves on the tree. I added tabs to the back of the cardboard to stick the unused items on while they’re unseasonal. 
She loved arranging the leaves, in almost puzzle-like fashion, and pulling the Velcro apart provided some good fine motor skill practice too.
The season tree now hangs on our ‘school board’ ready for us to keep going as the seasons progress through the year, and hopefully it will last long enough for Aviya to get in on the action too.
