Here in Houston, we may wish for autumn to come, may long for the sweet relief of cooler weather and lower electricity bills, but pretending that the end of August or the beginning of school or the day after Labor Day is really the beginning of autumn is farcical. We can only start pretending on the first official day of fall: September 23rd, the autumnal equinox. Mind you, the weather hasn’t arrived yet, but we can start pretending. Let the longing for autumn begin! After all, Autumn is only a state of mind.
Here’s my favorite autumn poem:
Vagabond Song by Bliss Carmon
THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood–
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
Bloggers Celebrate Autumn 2006
Dawn listed her autumn delights, in many of which I share her joy.
Queen Shenaynay said goodbye to summer and listed her accomplishments for the season past. She said she didn’t do as much as she would have wished, but I’m totally impressed by what she did do. How would you like to come over and clean out my closets, O Queen of the Beehive?
Fa-So-La-La. also of the Beehive, had an equally impressive list and farewell to summer.
MotherReader listed the accomplishments of the summer and wishes everyone a Happy School Year.
Cindy of Dominion Family was looking forward to fall.
Kim’s Hiraeth: Autumn Harvest Soup
Journey Woman associated fall with Robert Frost’s Mending Wall. I agree that Frost is a fall/winter poet. Snow, New England, fall work on the farm, trees–these are the images that I think of when I think of Frost. I like Robert Frost. Is he out of fashion now?
And the Seventh Carnival of Children’s Literature at Wands and Worlds had a fall harvest theme. Sheila Ruth had lots of good, fall, bookish links for lovers of children’s literature to enjoy.
As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies . . . The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
Bloggers Celebrate Autumn 2007
Pipsqueak has an autumn poem at The Common Room.
Clarice at Storybook Woods shares Autumn Bliss.: a collection of links, and pictures, and posts about autumn.
Autumn Rain is celebrating New Year’s Day: “Why?” I asked yesterday. “Why do we have to celebrate New Years in January? Why not September or October? Why not at the beginning, the real beginning, of the year? It would make so much more sense.”
Fall Curriculum Helps
Preschool Activities for Fall
Why do leaves change color in the fall? An explanation and two related science experiments.
In Living Color: Fall Leaves, a homeschool fall unit study.
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
Fall Book Lists:
Autumn Unit Study from Seven Pillars Booknook
Autumn Booklist from the same source
Top 10 Books About Fall Literature
Christian Science Monitor: Book buyers and bookstore owners offer tips as to fall’s best new books. None of them appeal to me, judging from the descriptions in the article. Maybe you’ll be luckier.
Seattle Times: Fiction dominates the autumn landscape.
Boston Globe: Picking Favorites for the Fall.
SEPTEMBER MORN
Written by Neil Diamond and Gilbert BecaudStay for just a while
Stay, and let me look at you
It’s been so long, I hardly knew you
Standing in the door
Stay with me a while
I only wanna talk to you
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world
To find ourselves againSeptember morn
We danced until the night became a brand new day
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel that wayLook at what you’ve done
Why, you’ve become a grown-up girl
I still can hear you crying
In a corner of your room
And look how far we’ve come
So far from where we used to be
But not so far that we’ve forgotten
How it was beforeSeptember morn
Do you remember how we danced that night away
Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play
September morning still can make me feel that way1979 Stonebridge Music (ASCAP)
In addition to Robert Frost, I also like Neil Diamond. I have eclectic tastes.
Books for Elementary Age Readers:
MoominValley in November by Tove Jansson. “Early one morning in Moominvalley Snufkin woke up in his tent with the feeling that autumn had come and that it was time to break camp.”
B Is for Betsy by Carolyn Haywood. ” . . . this morning Betsy was so busy feeling unhappy that she forgot all about the birds. Betsy was unhappy because today was the first day of school. She had never been to school, and she was sure she would not like it.
The Moffats by Eleanor Estes. “The way Mama could peel apples! A few turns of the knife and there the apple was, all skinned! . . . Jane sighed. Her mother’s peeling fell off in long lovely curls, while, for the life of her, Jane couldn’t do any better than these thick little chunks which she popped into her mouth.”
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater. “It was an afternoon in late September. In the pleasant little cit of Stillwater, Mr. Popper, the ouse painter, was going home from work.”
Freddy Plays Football by Walter R. Broooks. “Jinx, the black cat, was curled up in the exact center of the clean white counterpane that Mrs. Bean had ust put on the spare room bed.”
Revised and added to from September 23, 2006.
