Nature Table

I was delighted to notice recently that Angus's classroom has a nature table. This is something I remember fondly from my own primary school days, that ramshackle display in a corner of the room filled mainly with conkers, I seem to remember. Always conkers. I don't remember those nature displays appearing in winter, spring or summer, for some reason. But then there is so much of interest to find in the woods and bring inside in the autumn, I suppose, and it doesn't droop or wilt.

Last Sunday afternoon, in a brief moment of sunshine in between rain showers, Christmas cake baking and oven timers beeping, we went down to the woods. We weren't out for long, just time enough for us to all stretch our legs and collect some some "autumn treasures". "I've found some Nature, mummy." said Bella. "I've a found a bit more Nature, mummy." And so it went, as our wellies got muddier and our bag filled up with leaves, acorns, berries, seed heads and feathers. We brought them home and laid them out on a tray covered with a plain white tea towel. I was quite surprised at just how much colour there was to be found in there - pink, red, yellow, green and grey -  among the many shades of brown. A week later it's looking a bit dried up and crispy - it'll end up in the bin soon I think, but it was fun while it lasted.

We didn't find any conkers though.

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I so enjoyed reading your comments on my blanket post. What a response! Thank you. It was fascinating reading each of them and made me realise I am most definitely not alone in my need for organised randomness. Tick lists, spreadsheets, graphs, patterns, random stripe generators(!) and lots of piles of squares all featured heavily. It's interesting to see that creative does not always mean carefree and spontaneous - you can be an ever so slightly uptight, careful sort of creative, too. Yay!