Fun Fall Activities with Kids
Don’t slump when summer ends, it’s time to break out fun fall activities that you can share with your kids. While everyone sings the praises of summer, when you think about it there are plenty of fun fall activities to do with kids that the heat of summer would not allow. While summer has lots of long lazy days, you can really get into fun fall activities with kids because the air is crisp, clear and cool. Certainly many water activities end with the last day of summer but when you look at the list of fun fall activities that you can share with your kids it may seem to be a better than even trade off.
Bicycling trips One family activity that sometimes gets temporarily shelved during summer, especially in hotter climates is bicycling together. But when autumn arrives and the temperature drops a bit then one of the top fun fall activities to share with kids is riding bikes. If everyone in your family has a bike and appropriate helmet your total expense for this fun fall activity to enjoy with your kids is already a bargain with no hidden costs. You can ride around the block or to a distant location the point is to share the joy, the exhilaration and the sheer freedom of getting out and sharing the sunshine and fresh air and the feeling of exploration together.
Bicycling is not only fun fall activity you can share with your kids it is also a very healthy one. Peddling along you are usually distracted by the sights and sounds that you are passing that unless you are peddling uphill you hardly recognize that you are exercising at all. When you bicycle close to home you can choose a course that provides plenty of exercise but that is also at just the right level of challenge for the members of the family who are enjoying this fall fun activity. In fact you might make it a regular fun fall activity for you to do with your kids throughout the fall once or twice a week. Fitting cycling into your schedule regularly means everyone gets good exercise, you spend planned time with your kids and everyone has fun.
Your bicycling may turn into such a fun fall activity with your kids that you want to expand your riding beyond the regular neighborhood routes. You may well be surprised at the preparation that has been done elsewhere to provide you with safe places to enjoy this fun fall activity with your kids. Throughout most states you will find bicycling paths set aside for use by cycling enthusiasts. In many states, bicycling associations have used their influence on state and municipal authorities to create and maintain scenic bike paths for public use. As a result there are oceanside paths, paths through historic areas, paths through wooded reservations and paths that circle lakes or follow rivers. At many tourist locations you can find not just great trails but plenty of rental bikes from which to choose setting you free from the chore of having to pack up bikes to enjoy this fun fall activity perhaps on a long fall weekend.
Leaf Raking Requiring no more equipment than a few rakes and a barrel or some large trash bags, leaf raking can be a fall activity that you and your kids can share right in your own backyard. The benefits of this fun fall activity for kids and adult may surprise you. For example raking leaves gets children away from the television or the computer to enjoy a fun fall activity that surrounds them with fresh air and sunshine and often produces in young raker’s a healthy appetite and a good night’s sleep. With a little direction from parents, kids can discover that what may look like a chore can easily be turned into a fun fall activity through a series of games and contests.
Depending on the number of family members involved and the number of rakes you can produce you can divide participants and hold a competition to see which group can collect the biggest pile of leaves in a set period of time. Or you might arrange a leaf raking relay in which pairs of workers would fill and deliver trash bags of leaves to a designated dumping spot in a race against time or one another. Then of course their’s every one’s favorite the spontaneous “leaf fight” in the midst of a huge pile of leaves with everyone joining in and no one getting hurt.
From the parents’ point of view, leaf raking is a great and fun fall activity to share with kids in part because its just plain fun. But besides being a fun fall activity leaf raking also has practical value – the yard gets cleaned up before the snow flies, kids learn the value of team work and parents with good knowledge of nature can take a few moments to teach their children to identify all the trees in the yard by the leaves they drop. Sometimes this activity raises curiosity and questions about other non-deciduous trees and bushes in the yard . Maybe that’s what makes leaf raking a fun fall activity with kids because it can spin off into a number of other fun things to do together as a family.
Summer Album Not every fall day is bright and sparkling . Sometimes the blue October sky turns gray and the dry leaves are drenched by a chilly rain. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a fun fall activity for kids and parents to share on that dreary kind of fall day. A cool wet fall afternoon may be the perfect time to reminisce about the summer just passed by gathering mementos, programs, tickets, postcards and photos and creating a scrap book or memory book to go in the family bookcase.
To get everyone involved in this fun fall activity for kids you can take apart a commercially prepared scrapbook or use blank sheets of construction paper and give every family member the same number of pages to work with. Family member can also be given a certain theme to work on for example some one can work on “beach days”, someone else “barbeque’s and picnics” or the “summer garden”. Categories will be different for every family and will in part be determined by the materials you have saved. The best thing about this fun fall activity is that the resulting scrap book will be a unique statement about a particular summer and in its own way it will provide everyone with a memory of the fun fall activity the family shared on one rainy autumn day.
A Trip to the Beach Usually taking the family to the beach is an activity reserved for the warm days of summer. But children love surprises and turnabouts. Going to the beach is a fun fall activity with kids that will make them smile, call up memories, and challenge their imaginations. Set aside a cool clear fall day for a trip to a familiar summer beach with your kids and you may discover a fun fall activity you will want to revisit for years to come.
Of course when you arrive at the beach in the fall the air and water temperature are likely to make swimming impossible or very uncomfortable, but if you are lucky the day will be mild enough to allow the kids and the kids at heart to chuck socks and sneakers and let their toes remember the freedom and joy found in a good wiggle in the sand. Kids will of course be kids and they will soon be rolling up pant legs, running along the waters edge and kicking up their heels in sheer exhilaration. Going to the beach can be a fun fall activity with kids because you all can enjoy the unusual spaciousness of the beach, the enormity of the ocean and the clear sounds of the shore birds that sing across the unbelievable stillness of an empty beach.
With few other visitors on the beach you’ll want to take time to build sand castles, play tag with the incoming waves, chase birds, skim rocks, throw a Frisbee or football, or look for shells and you can do all these things without any interference or limitation.
If you have time you can add a picnic lunch to this fun fall activity. Kids love a picnic anywhere but spreading your blanket on a mostly empty beach is an experience that will at once seem normal and totally out of the ordinary. The real fun of this fall activity lies in how different familiar activities and settings may seem at different times of the year or when customarily crowded venues are visited when they are totally deserted. This one fun fall activity with kids may set them to wondering, perhaps over your picnic lunch, about what other seasonal spots would be like, out of season. This one fun fall activity with kids may help the family plan others to try in the very near future.
College Football Game Even if your kids aren’t football fans they are likely to find a day spent at a college football game to be a fun fall activity. To help the kids get the most out of this fun fall activity, it’s important to prepare. Even young children can do well at sporting events with some minimum preparation. Explain the game in simple and age appropriate language. You might even try a run through in the backyard. Make certain that you share with them the important function played by the fans – encouraging and wildly cheering on their favorite team. Get your kids into the feeling of the game by dressing them in team colors. And perhaps most important make definite plans for tailgating if appropriate or other game day snacks or meals.
No potentially fun fall activity with kids will turn out as fun as it might be without some recognition of the food factor.
Once you are in the stands your enthusiasm for football can help draw your children into the action . Help your kids to enjoy the game by attempting to see what is happening from their perspective. This means recognizing that they might not be caught up in the fine points of the game but might need their visions and thoughts directed to other things like the band, the cheerleaders, the mascot, the crowd, the officials on the field, the substitute players on the sidelines, the scoreboard, the fans on the other side of the field. All of these people and objects add to the fun of this fall activity for kids.
As much as you might like football remember not to become so involved in the play that you lose track of why you have come out on this particular day, you are at the game to share it and the day with your family. Your sensitivity to your children can keep this a fun fall activity with our kids because you will recognize if and when they have had enough. There are no prizes awarded for staying through to the final minute of play. You might have a very enjoyable first half, but if you try to stretch your attendance time further, the time spent together may no longer be fun. Remembering that you came to the game to enjoy a fun fall activity with your kids will help you to decide when it’s time to go. Leaving the game early can sometimes be a way of preserving the memory of this fun fall activity with your kids as a happy one.
Be Part of the Season Children can learn a great deal about life through exposure to things agricultural. If you have a family garden they may already have an awareness of the passing of the seasons and what each season means to the flowers and produce in your garden. But if you don’t pursue gardening at home or if you would like your children to see the process of nature on a larger scale, try a fun fall activity with your kids by visiting a nearby orchard or farm.
In many states there are farms and fruit orchards that are open for public picking. Taking your kids out into a field or orchard and getting them up close to the real world of plants and harvesting can give them a whole new perspective about how special our farms, fields and orchards are. Take time to seek out someone on the farm or in the orchard that might share a few words with your kids about how the produce is planted, cultivated and harvested. There are still many working farms where for a small or no fee families can watch the work of harvesting a variety of crops up close and personal.
What can really enhance farm or orchard visit and turn it into a fun fall activity for your kids is to purchase some produce and include it in your next meal. If possible go straight from the farm stand to a nearby picnic location and enjoy your fresh fruit , berries or vegetables as part of your lunch. Over lunch you can talk about what you saw at the farm and maybe even talk about next year’s home garden. If your farm visit is not going to correspond with lunch time then plan ahead to take some of your freshly picked produce with you to munch as you enjoy a nearby nature walk. If you have included vegetables in your purchases work them in to the menu for your evening meal. Kids love to eat what they have picked . Part of the fun of this fall activity with your kids is that for a while every time they eat fruit or vegetables they will remember the time they picked their own.
Any activity you chose to do in autumn can be a fun fall activity with kids if you as a parent put yourself wholeheartedly and good naturedly into the event. For most kids a fun fall activity can be biking, going to the beach, making a scrapbook, going to a football game or visiting a produce farm, but really what makes a fun fall activity for kids is simply the opportunity to have a fun day with their parents. For kids It just doesn’t get any better than that.
