Creative Fall Activities for Kids: Inspire Learning Through Play
Few season lend themselves so well to hands on creativity as fall. I think by spring and summer time we are anxious to get outside, but in the fall we can settle in to cozy routines of crafting and learning.
While my earliest crafts with little ones were simple, we’ve gradually tried more advanced handwork so that we experienced a wide range of fun fall activities. You can find detailed instructions for many of these activities in our Nature Guides, especially the Tree Guide and Farm Guide.
2-6 Year Olds
Crayon Rubbings of Leaves and Bark: Simply take crayons and paper outside and lay them flat on any interesting nature finds. Rub the crayon over the paper until you get a picture. Later, cut the rubbings out and glue them to construction paper for a fall themed collage.
Pumpkin Spice Scented Playdough: You can use Pumpkin Pie Spice to scent a regular batch of playdough, and then give your child tools to roll and cut their playdough into fall shapes.
Beeswax Candle Rolling: Grab a beeswax candle kit from Amazon and spend time rolling candles for the family.
Leaf Animals: Use the book Look What I Did With a Leaf to create animals from various shaped leaves.
Bake a Pie: Little ones can help stir ingredients, grease a pan, and roll out a pie crust.
Nature Weaving: Use a forked branch with yarn wrapped around it to tuck in nature finds.
6-12 Year Olds
Dip Beeswax Candles: We love melting chunks of beeswax purchased from a local beekeeper in a large, clean olive oil can that has been placed in a canning kettle full of water. We dip both ends of a 24” strand of waxed wicking into the melted wax to create beautiful candles for winter. (You can order pellets and hemp candle wick from Amazon through the links, but we love finding bulk beeswax from local beekeepers.)
Bake Leaf Shaped Sugar Cookies: Younger children can help with cutting out the cookies that older children have carefully measured out and mixed. (Click here to order fall themed cookie cutters).
Make Walnut Shell Boats: We scoop out the meats of carefully split walnut shells and then attach tiny flags with toothpicks to mimic the Mayflower ship that the Pilgrims arrived on.
Carve Pumpkins: Clean out the inside of a pumpkin and carve a funny face in it for a fall luminary.
Make a Leaf Mobile: Dip beautiful fall leaves in beeswax to preserve them and then tie them carefully to a wooden branch or dowel for a pretty fall decoration.
Burlap Embroidery: Cut out fall shapes from felt (acorns, apples, leaves) and then embroider them to burlap. We love keeping them in their small embroidery hoop and hanging from a window or hook.
Many of these crafts could cross over from different ages or seasons, but we hope this list of fun activities helps you create special memories with your children this season. If you need some fall themed books to help spark more joy, check out our list of Nature Books with some of the best books we have found for celebrating the seasons.
For more fall themed posts click here:
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