It’s fall! If you’re anything like me, you love changing out the toys and activities in your house to be seasonal. But, if you’re still like me, you want these changes to be easy and budget-friendly. (With three toddlers, I don’t have the time to spend hours making elaborate crafts—I want it easy!)
Here’s my list of my favorite fall activities that take very little time to prepare, but can still entertain kiddos for a while.
These activities are best for toddlers and above, but I’ll include some suggestions for the baby stage too!
Cutting leaves
Include your kids on the prep work for this one. Go foraging for leaves (or flowers, or grass) together, and then set them up with kid-safe scissors and demonstrate how to slice up pieces of leaves.
Variations on this activity: glueing the slices of leaves to a tree silhouette on paper.
Variations for a baby: trace their skin with leaves so they experience it sensorially, and let them hold a firm leaf (although keep a careful eye in case they try their famed hand-to-mouth exploration).
Scrubbing gourds
This is a fantastic activity that can take up a lot of time, depending on your kid’s attention span. All you need is gourds, water and some sort of “scrubbing” implement. Set up your water table, bucket, or even just fill a cookie sheet with water. Give your child a sponge, a toothbrush, a paintbrush, even a q-tip if they’re older. Then let them have a go at getting in those nooks and crannies! If your child thinks it’s silly to scrub a gourd that’s not visibly dirty, well, take those gourds on a little yard adventure and get them dirty.
Variations for baby: if you cleaned the gourd, it’s not bad for the (supervised) baby to explore it with their mouth, as long as they don’t have teeth yet. Let them handle the gourd–the textures are quite different for a baby.
RELATED: Pumpkin Pile-Up: Where Do They Go? Local Composting Options and More
Pounding pumpkins
Depending on how much you trust your child, you can use a small wooden mallet, or you can use a child-size real hammer. You can simply pound the pumpkin by itself, or you can use golf tees as safe alternatives to nails, or you can use shingle nails (a wide head and a narrow base) (these require supervision). Show your child how to bang the pumpkin or the nails. If you’re using golf tees, you might need to start a few holes for them. This is a great opportunity to talk about hammer and nail safety.
Variations for baby: let the baby whap on the pumpkin. Their hands are the “pounding” implements here!
Fall walk and sorting acorns
Go on a walk with your little one and gather acorns (or pinecones, or whatever you’d like) to sort. Depending on their skill level, you can do something as simple as just pouring acorns from one tiny bowl to another; or you can have out various numbers (say from 1-5) and sort the acorns under there. To be truly Montessori, number sorting is done in a self-correcting manner; so, for example, you’d make a paper square with “1” dot on it to place one acorn, and then a second paper with “2” dots on it, and so on.
Variation for a baby: let the baby hold the acorn with close supervision, or trace the acorn on their skin for a sensory experience.
Apple slicing
This is a perfect way to practice knife skills. (Ideally, you do this with apples you and your child have foraged yourselves!) Get whatever knife you’re comfortable your child using, and give them slices of apple to practice their cutting skills.
Apple baking
Include your child in a baking project, from something as simple as an oat topping for sliced apples (that they cut!), to something as complex as an apple cobbler. Gauge your child’s ability and let them crack the eggs, pour in pre-measured melted butter, and stir the oats.
