For the comprehensive development of preschool children in kindergarten and primary school children, it is imperative to pay attention to the natural changes of the seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter. For example, with the beginning of autumn and the new school year, you can conduct the lesson “Autumn changes in nature”, clearly explaining the topic of training in the park for walks or in the classroom using material collected in advance. Older children keep a calendar of weather changes by drawing icons and making comparisons with previous years. It captures autumn changes in nature (pictures and herbarium are attached). On the topic of the lesson, you should pay attention to the following points.
Golden autumn
In the middle zone of Russia, autumn is indeed a “charm of eyes,” as the poet said. The heat and stuffiness of summer is changed by light coolness. Days are getting shorter and nights are getting longer and darker. Trees are the first to react to these autumnal changes in nature . The leaves turn yellow and redden, then slowly fly around, covering with a multi-colored carpet the whole district. The period of the golden Indian summer is approaching, when nature still pleases with a moderate sun, when the late fruits ripen, filling with both sweetness and aroma, but nights are already becoming colder and colder.
Leaf fall
This majestic and colorful natural phenomenon is associated with biological changes that occur in almost all wild-growing trees during the cold periods of the year. The foliage falls and thus allows the plants to relax, prepare for long hibernation, when all life processes inside the tree are stopped, and the juices cease to circulate. Without leaves, trees consume much less water, do not accumulate a lot of snow on the branches during snowfalls. This means that the risks of mechanical damage are reduced. In addition, along with the leaves, plants shed all kinds of pests, which then die during the period when the cold comes. We can say that autumn changes in nature begin with leaf fall. But this is in living nature (after all, trees are also living creatures with the ability to breathe and grow). And how are the autumn changes in inanimate nature associated with the onset of cold weather?
Mists
Indian summer is a short-lived period, usually ending with the onset of October. The first signs of inclement weather are already appearing. Fogs, thick, sticky, resembling milk in their appearance, fill the autumn nature with dampness and a sweet smell. In its essence, fog is a thick cloud, which as a result of a temperature difference forms near the surface of the soil. As soon as it gets warmer, the fog will dissipate. Moisture will fall on the dried grass and foliage in the form of hoarfrost (if the ground has cooled down enough).
Frost
The theme of autumn changes in inanimate nature includes such a phenomenon as hoarfrost. In essence, these are small particles of dew frozen in the form of snowflakes. They cover all surfaces with a thin, uneven, prickly layer. This suggests that the first frosts and freezing temperatures appeared in the atmosphere.
Winds and clouds
In autumn, a cold front of the atmosphere brings colder air masses. Winds react to this and change their direction, intensify, bringing bad weather and precipitation. This time of year sometimes becomes slushy and long, causing autumnal changes in nature.
Cumulonimbus clouds, in turn, bring a huge amount of rainfall. If the temperature changes quite sharply, it is possible to feel strong winds at the beginning of autumn, to see and feel the rains with snow, as a result of the appearance of a cold cyclone.
Ice drift and ice
In late November, it happens that the air temperature drops to negative values. The water surface of various reservoirs is constrained by the first crusts of ice. This most often occurs in ponds and lakes, where there is almost no current. The ice is not quite strong yet, so the wind and currents carry it, forming the so-called autumn ice drift.
The ice covering the soil in the middle and at the end of autumn is formed in light frost, which prevents the rain from turning into snow. The earth has not cooled enough to cover itself with a snow cover, a harbinger of severe frosts.
Watching the autumn changes in nature, you can find out how the transition to the winter period of life, cold and snowy, is being prepared. When everything around as if freezes until next spring and the onset of warm days.
Autumn changes in wildlife
- We already talked about leaf fall in trees and its significance for the life of plants at the beginning of this article. It should be emphasized that trees also belong to wildlife, as they live and die, breathe and give offspring. In plants, autumn is a thorough preparation for the winter period, when all of them (living in natural conditions) fall into hibernation: vital activity and the exchange of juices are reduced many times.
- Insects with the onset of cold weather hide and hibernate. This is a protective reaction to lower temperatures. Many insects (for example, flies or bugs) crawl into cozy slots and seem dead at first glance. But this is not so. With the onset of spring, they will come to life and will fly again.
- Cold-blooded animals "fall asleep" as a result of the fact that they cannot maintain the temperature necessary for existence. Snakes, frogs, reptiles and amphibians all hibernate in late autumn.
- At the very beginning of autumn, birds prepare for flights to warmer climes. Then their departure begins. Wintering birds do not fly away anywhere and feed intensively in the autumn forests.
- Some mammals also hibernate in late autumn and early winter. But this is more likely connected not with the onset of cold weather, but with the lack of food supply for them in winter. Such animals include: bear, badger, groundhog, hedgehog, some rodents (ground squirrel, hamster, sleepyhead).
- Wintering mammals intensively accumulate weight in order to spend their own fat in winter cold for heating and nutrition.
Thus, the animal world is preparing for the approaching winter cold season, reacting differently to autumn changes in nature.