October 2025: Feelings and Fall

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

- Nathanial Hawthorne

Mindful Focus: Feelings/Emotions

Explorations: Autumn, Trees, and Leaves

Fall Time is full of fun and adventure! We really got to enjoy the very warm weather this autumn. Although we love our days of wet and cold weather, it is too nice when we can utilize every moment to go outside!

October is fun because the children are use to the routine, expectations, and relationships at school. We have began diving into more complex activities that require responsibility. Our goal is to show children how fun learning can be!

Trees and Leaves Exploration:

*Tree life cycle, making paper, walnut harvest, leaf rubbings, class sit trees*

October was a truly beautiful month. The children had the chance to marvel at the shifting colors around them and discover why the leaves change. It all comes down to chlorophyll—and it was such fun to remind them about it throughout the month. We were delighted by how many of them could recall that big scientific word!

As part of exploring the gorgeous fall leaves, each class set out to find their own “sit tree.” The students learned why having a special tree matters: a place to pause, breathe, and connect with nature whenever they need it most. During our search, we encouraged them to look for a tree that transformed with the seasons, had a bit of personality, offered a comfortable place to sit (very important!), and felt meaningful to them.

Once a tree was discovered and lovingly claimed, we marked it with the matching class tag and took time to notice everything we appreciated about it. To celebrate, we danced around it with scarves—easily their favorite part of the whole adventure.

Now that every class has its own tree, it’s wonderful to see the children visiting theirs whenever they want a quiet moment, a sense of comfort, or simply a chance to be surrounded by nature.

- Miss Annie

This month at SimpleLife Preschool, we have been exploring the topic of feelings and emotions. Teachers have been leading activities to explore this topic with the children and how different experiences might result in different feelings (happy, sad, excited, angry, frustrated). On a daily basis, SimpleLife Teachers encourage mindfulness as soon as the children arrive to school. One of the tasks they complete is to “check in” on how they are feeling. Each classroom contains a feelings chart with faces displaying basic emotions and feelings where children might choose to place their feelings stick. This not only gives teachers an idea of how they might be feeling, but creates an awareness and sense of safety for students around emotions. Our yoga flow practice supports students in awareness, as we repeat affirmations of “I am loved” or “I am unique”, finding calm in the body no matter the feeling and that all emotions are welcomed here. When the children are experiencing big feelings and are in need of some extra love and support, we acknowledge their emotions and help them identify and name the feeling. We encourage the children to utilize mindfulness techniques including noticing and sensing in the body, taking some calming breaths, or sometimes it is movement that is more beneficial to allow the feelings to release. Even as adults, we can be challenged by our emotions. We encourage SimpleLife School families to ask your children to share some of these practices which can benefit the whole family!

- Miss Missy

Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to be able to let things go. This months art projects helped us capture the beauty of fall through a series of creative and engaging activities. We’ve been discussing different forms of art… representational and abstract. For our first project we focused on making abstract trees. Will everyone’s look the same and look exactly like a real tree? Not this time! But we were able to let some control go during art and let each child’s imagination and expression shine as they got to glue each part of their tree down conveying the essence of Autumn rather than making a literal depiction! Next we got to create our very own tree sculptures. Does every tree in nature look the same? Of course not! Neither will ours. We first got to decorate the “ground” for our tree. Then the children bent the wires into place to create branches then working on their fine motor skills they chose a variety of items such as beads and buttons to place onto their sculpture. Our last exciting project was simple but beautiful. Each child got to paint their very own autumn wreath using colors we’d likely see in the fall time as the leaves begin to change. After they’d dried we engaged in some hands on learning. What better way to decorate our wreaths for fall than using actual items we’ve found in nature? This brought us to our nature walk! Each class walked on the Simplelife trail working hard to notice signs of fall, using our many senses and collecting items to bring back to the school for our wreaths. After a calm mindful moment taking in the world around us, we got back to work. Many nature items were heavier so we encouraged the children to add lots of glue this time using a paint brush and carefully placing their pieces down. Each wreath came out so unique! It’s incredible to see each child enjoy expressing themselves through art in their very own way. What better way to celebrate fall than to proudly take home and hang your own work of art.

- Miss Mallorie

SimpleLife does not celebrate Halloween but we do celebrate the Fall Season. We allow children to wear fall costumes if they would like because dressing up is a relevant part of many children’s lives at this time of year. All season we have been exploring things that happen in the fall such as garden harvesting and changing leaves.

We had a lot of fun costumes this year! It’s always so exciting to see what each personality chooses to dress up as. As a class, we made a pumpkin village where we carved a dwelling for our little wooden dolls/gnomes. Many of the children were hesitant to grab the pulp or guts out of the pumpkin. After washing the seeds we roasted and salted them and let the children try them during snack time. The children got to enjoy the pumpkin village to play with afterwards!

Children got to perform the songs we have been practicing at school to their families. Each child has a different experience when it comes to getting in front of a crowd. We are so proud of each one of them!

- Miss Demi