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Top 10 Autumn Activities

Autumn is certainly a season of change. As we make the rather gloomy transition from Summer into Winter we notice that the arrival of night time becomes much earlier and of course the temperature drops considerably. We see the leaves start to change colour and fall off trees, the birds migrate south and animals start to think about hibernation! How does this affect us? We get out our gloves, scarves and hats on to wrap up warm and head for the indoors as much as possible. But how can we keep children occupied? Here are our top 10 autumn activities to help make the most of this time of year.

Top 10 Autumn Activities for Kids 

1. Make an Autumn Collage

 Here’s a great way to make the most of the chilly walk home from school. Get your little ones to collect leaves of different colours and sizes to take home and press by placing them under a heavy book for a couple of days. You can then help them arrange the leaves on paper and glue into place – use further decoration with crayons, glitter or even stickers to make the autumn collage look original!

2. Conker Painting

Another great activity to entice the kids away from the TV as soon as they get in from school. Kids love to collect fallen conkers and here’s a brilliant way to get them to make the most of their collection. Put down plenty of newspaper as it’s quite a messy one! Make sure you have plenty of paint in different colours and just dip the conkers in and roll across the paper. Repeat this with as many colours as you like until you’re happy with the finished picture! This is also a great idea for making home made cards if the children were to use the conkers to swirl patterns on the front of a card.

3. Exploring Nature Outdoors

If it’s dry outside then Autumn can be a perfect time to use local walks to explore the natural environment. Look at birds, animals, plants and trees or anything that interests your child. It’s a good idea to take photos or have a pad of paper so your child can draw pictures of what they see or copy from the photos when you get home. Fallen leaves also make great hiding places and are great for a kick around. Try matching up the leaves to the correct trees is always a good challenge!

4. Autumn Games

If you log onto www.activityvillage.co.uk/autumn-leaves-dominoes you can find template of Autumn Leaves dominoes that you can print out for your children. Instead of dots they will need to match the different shapes and colours of the Autumn leaves! There is also Autumn scramble here: http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/autumn-scramble-puzzle Unjumble the letters in the Autumn Scramble puzzle to find a collection of Autumn words – it’s quite tricky!

5. Spray-painted pine cones and conkers

This is a great Autumn activity to do after a walk in the park. Choose a selection of different shaped pine cones and conkers and lay them on some newspaper. Choose some paints – orange, black and green would work brilliantly for a Halloween theme. Let your child cover the conkers and pine cones in paint and make them as colourful as possible. Once they’ve dried they will look great for some Halloween decoration or for show and tell in school!

6. Leaf Rubbings

When collecting different leaves for your collage (Number 1) remember to save a few so that you can create pictures and cards for all your friends. This works best when the leaves are as big and as strong as possible. Place a leaf under some paper and rub a crayon or pastel on its side and gently colour on the layered paper over the leaf. This is suitable for all ages and looks even better when you add some glitter or small stickers to make it as colourful as possible.

7. Pumpkin Carving

 As we’re soon approaching Halloween, we have plenty of ideas for carving your pumpkin! This is an exciting element of Halloween for children – remember to keep your designs very simple. My favourite design is to cut out a big smiley face for the mouth, a triangle for the nose and then a moon shape for one eye and a star shape for the other eye.

8. Autumn treasure hunt

Get your children enjoying the outdoors whilst using their imagination. Set out some treasures in the garden with little clues or little tasks so that they can different twigs, stone and leaves. You could even take this fun elsewhere by going to the park or somewhere nearby. A hot chocolate would be a nice reward for them or stickers for achieving their tasks!

9. Grow your own food

Autumn is a fantastic time to grow your own fruit and vegetables. Food that is grown in season is much tastier and of course, healthier! It doesn’t take that long to do and you don’t need acres of land to do it in. A good one to start on with your child is growing cress! Just fill an empty egg shell with damp cotton wool and sprinkle cress seeds on top. Your child can draw a face on the eggshell so that the cress grows like hair! Simply place the egg head in a warm place that gets some sunlight such as a windowsill and the cress should start to grow after about 7 days!

10. Leaf Bugs

As you can see by the main photo of this blog “Leaf bugs” are a lovely way to decorate leaves after a frosty walk with nature. Autumn is the season of beautiful colours – from russet reds to fiery oranges. Why not head out on a walk or treasure hunt and gather your leaves ready to get crafting? Decorate your leaf as shown on our main photo and create a “Leaf bug” of your choice. My favourite is the lady bird.

As you can see there are plenty of fun Autumn activities to do with your children during this season of change. Although we might not be looking forward to the clocks going back and the arrival of early dark nights, there is one thing that remains consistent. At Jigsaw we provide dance, singing and drama classes throughout the Autumn/Winter term and we don’t stop for half term! We aim to inspire your children’s creativity, channel their energy and provide them with lots of performing arts fun every weekend.

Jigsaw Performing Arts is dedicated to developing performance skills, promoting self-expression and building confidence. We offer performing arts classes for children aged between 3 – 18. Find your nearest school by entering your postcode into the search on our home page