ABSTRACT
This chapter presents ideas for practice to guide the way children find out about the living things which inhabit the woodland and how they change throughout the seasons. Learning starts with the younger children exploring how the woodland changes in autumn and how animals and plants use this time to get ready for winter. Woodlands are interesting places to visit at any time of the year. Spring is the time when the woodland wakes up from its winters rest. With renewed vitality wild flowers burst out, taking advantage of the spring sunshine before the leaves on the trees grow big enough to steal the suns energy. In summer, trees monopolise the suns energy to grow and produce their fruit. Autumn is a time of change when the weather gets colder, and living things prepare themselves for the coming winter. Autumn brings a host of ripening fruit and seeds which are eaten by animals and harvested by humans.
