Autumn Moments

With Autumn now fully upon us and Autumn being one our favourite times of the year to really embrace and connect with nature and the changes in the world around us we wanted to share with you some of our favourite Autumn moments.

These tie in so well with our practice of Hygee in the early years and our Ethos here at The Learning Tree. We hope that you will enjoy these as much as we do:


A hug in a bowl (Winter fruit Crumble)

With the apple and blackberry season well upon us, you can either forage for these ingredients or buy them, blackberries are a lot easier to forage it is great way of getting wrapped up and head outdoors to collect these with your child, and even you if you only find a don’t worry these will be great for another Autumn moment that we will touch on next:

120g Plain Flour

60g Caster Sugar

60g Unsalted butter

300g Apples (Braeburn if shop bought)

30g unsalted butter

30g Demerara Sugar

115g Blackberries

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

  1. Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Tip 120g plain flour and 60g caster sugar into a large bowl. 

  2. Add 60g unsalted butter, then rub into the flour using your fingertips to make a light breadcrumb texture. 

  3. Peel, core and cut 300g Braeburn apples into 2cm dice.

  4. Put 30g unsalted butter and 30g demerara sugar in a medium saucepan and melt together over a medium heat. Cook for 3 mins until the mixture turns to a light caramel.

  5. Stir in the apples and cook for 3 mins. Add 115g blackberries and ¼ tsp ground cinnamon and cook for 3 mins more.

  6. Cover, remove from the heat, then leave for 2-3 mins to continue cooking in the warmth of the pan. 

  7. Place all in a tray with crumble on top and cook.

We love to enjoy this with some homemade custard!

Forage painting 

This is where we once again get wrapped up and head outdoors to see what we can find to use to paint with (both alternatives for paint and paint brushes.) A great way to engage your child with some gross and fine motor skills activities all whilst embracing the wonderful outdoors and learning what this has offer us.

As mentioned in the previous activity foraging for blackberries is great fun if we can find them, not to worry though if you can only find a few as these can be used to mush up creating your own nature’s paint that is also edible! 

If you squish the blackberries in a tray using a stick or pebble/stone, you will release all the juicy goodness that can be used as paint. If you’re not quite ready to use the paint, there and then add a little bit of water and freeze in trays to save for a later date. 

Next up to find a paint brush, here you can literally ‘go wild’ and use whatever you can find from plain twigs, twigs with leaves or get creative and create some paint brushes yourselves using twigs and tying on different ends, from different types of leaves/flowers(wild) Please not from anyone’s garden/weeds to feathers. On that note we would love to see any creations you make by adding these to your child’s Tapestry account

Any spare apples you have if you made the crumble are also a great activity here, just cut the apple in half and get apple pressing. Dip the apple in the paint you have made and press onto paper!

Leaf Hammering

 This is a simple one to do, collect leaves and either using a child’s hammer or branch lay the leaf between a folder sheet of absorbent paper or fabric and get hammering, fun for the children and great hand eye coordination. 


Leaf Rubbings

Another simple one to do, by collecting wild leaves, place under some paper and using the side of a crayon rub away to see what you can reveal!

Embracing the outdoors

As you can tell we love the outdoors and our last Autumn Moment we have for you and a firm favourite for us to do here at Nursery is to get outdoors (in all weather) just choose appropriate clothing.  Use this time outdoors to see what you can find and hear. Pointing out what you can see teaches your child about what nature has to offer, teaching them new words, helping them to explore the world in which they live and gain a better understanding of this. 

Listening to what we can hear is so important, this is the starting point of your child’s attention and listening supporting your child to tune into the sounds they can hear around us. 

We hope you enjoy reading this blog and if you do any of the above activities or have an Autumn moments of your on that you would like to share please post them on Tapestry for us to see.

Jessica Baxter