We had a great response from our brown-bag invitation to explore autumn's splendor. Soon the studio was overflowing with a gorgeous array of color, moldering scents and crunching leaves. We spent several days organizing our loot into several categories determined by students. Some of them included: color, spiky, smelly, fruit, acorns, pine cones and soft. During this process several students continued to draw the leaves, exploring the various hues, sizes and shapes.
I have been talking to the students a lot about composition over the last couple of weeks. We talk about it in terms of "how we choose to fill the space". Whether that space is a small paper or a large paper, two dimensional or three dimensional. We offered our older students an opportunity to explore this theme in greater depth on their studio day. They were each given a mat board and encouraged to make fall compositions using our sorted found materials. 
Most of the students decided to draw their finished compositions, before replacing them in their defined basket or tray.
The toddlers also explored leaf compositions indirectly, on the light table. They were equally interested in the process of transferring the leaves from the basket to the table and back again. One child repeatedly dropped the leaves on the ground, one at a time, studying the descent before trying it again.
Next week we plan to open the studio to broader explorations, incorporating all our fall findings into our study.
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