We celebrated autumn with our preschool families yesterday during our Michaelmas festival. We made a craft together, the children sang songs for their parents, we welcomed Mother Nature, shared a meal and played in the rain.
In preparation, the children ground the wheat and made the bread dough at the preschool last week.
One of our traditions is to wrap a bulb for mother nature to pass out to the children. I haven't changed the way I do this in four years. Always a tulip bulb and the same poem. Here is my worktable the night before.
I wrapped them in burlap and tied with twine and added a piece of orange wool for an autumn leaf.
Focusing on the theme of the meteor showers that accompanied St Michael in early autumn, I thought it would be fun to make shooting stars at the festival. The craft is made with parent and child, so I needed to prep the project as much as possible. The night before I began cutting wool stars to stitch and stuff.
I quickly realized that I needed a shortcut to make 25 of these before morning and altered the assembly just slightly. Instead of stitching around the star and stuffing with wool, I placed the extra large dragon tear (to give weight to the star) in the center of the wool and joined the star pieces by stitching around just the glass stone. At the festival, children then added crystal rhinestones and with the help of parents stitched the tails on the star.
It was fun to watch them flying through the air.
(this photo was taken today...a perfectly sunny afternoon)
Our big act of courage for the children at this festival is to have each one of them step forward and receive their gift from Mother Nature. It is not an easy thing to do when you are three or four.
Summer goodbye
Summer goodbye
You may no longer stay,
Autumn is on its way,
Summer goodbye
Summer goodbye
