It never fails- when fall weather hits, we want to be outside to enjoy it! Here are some tried and true suggestions to help your kiddos get outside and enjoy this beautiful weather!

1. Leaf Explorers

Ages 1–4: For these kiddos, the best way to play is to focus on open exploring. They can help you gather colorful leaves, touch and crinkle them, toss them in the air, or make a big leaf pile to roll and crawl in.

Ages 4–8: At this age, kiddos love a task. You can ask them to sort leaves by color, shape, or size, make leaf crowns or leaf rubbings, or create imaginary “leaf potions” or maps using leaves.

2. Nature Kitchen

Ages 1–4: In your space, you can set up a mud kitchen or picnic area with leaves, pinecones, and water for mixing and pouring. Highly recommend picking up old baking goods at a thrift store for this purpose!

Ages 4–8: At this age, you can turn your space into a “fall café,” creating pretend recipes with acorns, sticks, and herbs. Kiddos can make menus or serve family and friends. Be sure to be clear about what plants can and cannot be included in the recipes- we learned this the hard way and have no more marigolds in our front garden! They do make a beautiful ‘soup,’ though.

3. Forest Treasure Hunt

Ages 1–4: To engage in a ‘treasure hunt,’ walk around your yard or park, and ask kiddo to find items like sticks, pinecones, or smooth stones. You can bring a basket to collect ‘treasures,’ or just point them out as you go!

Ages 4–8: To really get into the discovery element, create a scavenger hunt or “nature detective” mission and have kiddo write out or draw what they need to find before leaving. Ideas can be things like: find something soft, a stick shaped like a letter, something red, see two birds flying at the same time, etc. About 6-10 items should be plenty for the first try!

4. Fall Art Studio

Ages 1–4: On a nice day, you can help kiddo paint with nature: dip leaves or sticks into washable paint and stamp onto paper. Be sure to have all elements outside to avoid having to run back inside. Don’t forget paper towels and a cup of water to rinse items off! If you’d prefer, you can also bring the leaves inside and do your project there if the weather is no good.

Ages 4–8: For these kiddos, you could write out a few broad prompts like ‘a city’ or ‘under the sea’ to inspire them to make nature collages or “outdoor sculptures” using found materials. They could bring these inside to create, or you could build them outdoors and experiment with shadow tracing as the light shifts!

5. Wind & Weather Play

Ages 1–4: On a blustery fall day, you can take kiddo outside and feel the wind on faces, wave scarves, or chase floating leaves.

Ages 4–8: To engage older kiddos, this could be a multi step idea, where they build and fly paper or leaf kites. Kiddos could also measure wind direction using ribbons or leaves or observe clouds and guess weather changes. Bringing out paper and coloring items would give them time to draw the clouds they see!

Overall, the goal of these ideas is to help you get kiddo outside and run off some energy while having fun! What do you do to engage your kiddos in the fall weather?