A sensory walk on an Autumn day with my toddler.

Rushing on ahead to see the ducks

Baby Boy has been gabbling for a while now. He will exclaim loudly and point to get what he wants as his vocabulary is limited to family names and animal sounds. The latter is pretty helpful when I ask if he wants to go and feed the ducks as he makes a quacking sound which I treat as agreement with my plans.

As the sun was out today we decided to go and see the ducks at the local pond. I had a pot of  leftover toast slices in the car to feed them and picked up some coats as I wasn't entirely sure it was really all that warm.

Pesky Pigeons stealing all the bread 

People often ask if Baby Boy is speaking yet and will console me by saying, "it won't be long." as if I should actually be worried that he isn't. I don't worry about it at all. We communicate well enough and I encourage him to express himself and experience the world in many different ways. He is really into sensory play at the moment and today was an ideal opportunity to use all the senses during our morning outdoors.

Visual: We often observe trees and have been watching the leaves change colour for weeks now. Today we also saw lots of colourful leaves on the ground. Then Baby Boy spotted the duck pond and ran ahead to watch the birds swimming contentedly round on the water.

Crunch crunch crunch 

Sound: There is nothing like the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, I love it. Where we go to feed the birds they can be very noisy - not as loud as Baby Boy admittedly, but still. He does a pretty impressive duck quack sound which either draws them near or scares them off depending on how screechy he is.

Taste: When we feed the birds Baby Boy always gives in to the temptation to try some of the bread. This is why I have to make sure it's edible just in case he pops it in his mouth before giving it to the ducks.

Quack, quack, quack

Smell: Autumn has an amazing smell all of its own. The freshly cut grass, wet leaves and that distinctive tang of autumnal air.

Touch: On our way home from dropping off Big Boy at school we regularly pick up leaves, conkers and pine cones from the ground. We feel the different textures and compare them with each other. As we were preparing to come home for lunch I felt his hands and they were very cold so I knew it was time for something hot to eat and a nice nap.

Lovely leaves

Autumn is my favourite season by far. In writing this post I can now see why - it really is a feast for all the senses.