Teacher
Guide To The Autumn / Fall Season
Autumn is one of the four temperate seasons that includes spring, summer and winter. Some people call autumn, "fall," which refers to the leaves falling off the trees during this season. The falling of the leaves begins when the leaves change colors and go from being green, to burning red, golden yellow and vivid orange. Then as autumn continues, the leaves begin to rain from the tree branches signifying the end of the harvest time. Many people in Canada, the United States, Japan, China and Korea travel around their home countries during autumn just to watch the leaves change colors and fall off the trees because it is such a beautiful site of nature. In fact the tourist season of leaf watching is a popular time to go hiking, camping and enjoying being outside with nature since the temperatures are mild, as the heat of summer has past and the chill of winter has yet to come.
Autumn comes after summer but before winter, from the first day of September to the last day of November. However the months of autumn depend on what part of the world it is in relation to the equator. While it is autumn in September through November in the United States, Europe, as well as all the other countries in the Northern Hemisphere, for the Southern Hemisphere where Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Africa and Asia lie, autumn comes from March to May. At this time of year, the days start to get shorter as nights grow longer, giving people less daylight to enjoy. For example, in the mornings as children wait for the bus, they will notice in Autumn the sky is still dark when before the sun had already come up.
The history of autumn began with the time of harvest for people who worked and depended on farming to survive. Autumn was even called "harvest" in the 1500s because this was when fruits and vegetables were ready to be picked and stored for the winter. People had to store foods so they would not starve when the winter came, as the cold weather would kill all the plant life. So, the season of autumn was an extremely important time of year. As society developed and people moved off the farms and into cities to work in factories, the term "harvest" was replaced with autumn, or fall.
Some holidays that fall during the time of autumn are Thanksgiving and Halloween. Thanksgiving is a tradition that is symbolic of the Native Americans feeding the first colonists who were not prepared with steady crops of vegetables and fruits. We celebrate Thanksgiving to give thanks for the sharing of the harvest during the first years of settlers. Halloween is a time where people decorate pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, and make displays of cornhusks and hay bales, also celebrating the harvest time of year. The Jewish holiday of Sukkot and the Chinese Moon Festival are celebrated by other cultures to show appreciation for the good food of the season and to get ready to settle indoors for the next season of winter, which often keeps people indoors and isolated. This makes autumn more of a fun and relaxing time as people anticipate the cold weather that is just around the corner.
Breezing Fall into Your Classroom Tips For Teachers
Breezing Fall into Your Classroom Tips For Teachers
Veteran teachers offer ten great ideas to bring the theme of Fall into your class. The tips are guaranteed to help students identify with the theme. We hope to make your class the place to be.
- Take a nature walk.
- Use leaves.
- Fall bulletin board.
- Hang Fall related items all over.
- Pumpkin seed counts.
- Calculate student carbon footprints. Here is a carbon footprint calculator.
- Plant a tree. Saplings are usually less than a dollar each. Ask parents / guardians for help.
- Lollipop tree countdown to Halloween.
- Pumpkin party. Invite parents / guardians.
- Make masks. Here are a full set of ideas on mask making.