Seasons > > Autumn > Ways to Celebrate > Fun things for Families to do in the fall
Play in the leaves
When you rake up leaves, spend some time playing in them with your kids! Yes, you will have to rake them again, but you will be making memories for your kids, and there is no expensive entrance fee, the way so many fun places have!
Geocaching
This is like a treasure hunt, but instead of a treasure map, you go on line to get clues and then use a GPS device to help you find a cache of trinkets. It’s not a real treasure, but it’s the same kind of fun--you choose one item, and replace it with one you brought, so that no matter how many people find that spot, there is always a keepsake to take home. If it sounds like fun, but you don’t know where to start, there is a book called, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geocaching.” Or check out Geocaching.com to find a list of “hidden treasures” near you, as well as tips on how to do it. There are more than 4 million hidden world wide. There are over 20 pages of locations in Tokyo alone! Many languages are available.
People hide a cache of trinkets, then post GPS coordinates and hints for how to find it on the internet. When you find the “hidden treasure,” you take one of the items, and leave something in it’s place.
Go on a bike hike.
To make sure your kids don’t declare it to be the worst day of their lives, keep it short, and make sure there is a fun destination. If there is not a good destination nearby, put the bikes in the car, or see if there are rental bikes you can use somewhere--tandem bikes are especially fun. If you do it right, they can learn a lot of new skills, too, like map reading and safety--Insist that everyone wears helmets, including mom and dad!
Go camping
Whether overnight or for a weekend, even if it is just in the back yard, there is something magical about sleeping in a tent and cooking over a fire. If you don’t have the necessary equipment, see if there is someone you could borrow it from, such as the youth leader in your church. Some campsites in Japan have equipment you can rent.
Buy Outdoor Toys and Play with the Kids outside--you are your kids’ favorite toy, so invest in new equipment that will entice everyone outside. A few ideas: a foxtail, frisbee, or chinese jumprope and figure out how to use it together.
Play old fashioned games with your children like kick the can, marbles, or hopscotch--what ever you grew up doing--flag football, pick up basketball, soccer, street hockey, etc. If you didn’t grow up playing these, don’t let that stop you--check out a book from the library that teaches how to play sidewalk games, or outside games.
Draw chalk pictures
Buy some sidewalk chalk at the dollar store or hundred yen store and draw pictures on the road. You may have the whole neighborhood join you, especially if you make a maze, or “roads” for bikes and wagons to go on. And don’t worry about clean up--the next rain will take care of that.
Pick your own apples or pumpkins
Check out what is available locally--if apples and pumpkins are not grown near you, there might be other produce--some places allow you to pick your own potatoes or mandarin oranges (mican.)
Water activities for chilly weather
For younger children, find a bridge and drop sticks on one side of the bridge, and see who’s stick comes out first on the other side of the bridge. For older children, teach them how to skip rocks, or make boats--make them on the spot out of leaves growing nearby, or make wooden paddle boats before you leave home, or invest in a remote control toy boat. Some lakes provide canoes or paddle boats to rent, so the children can actually ride in a boat. For Teens, plan a rafting trip down a river.
Teens crave new experiences
Find a local gym that teaches rock climbing, or state park that teaches rock repelling or other outdoor skills such as tracking or canoeing.
Learn the names of trees by identifying the leaves and bark. This is easy to do when you are taking walks, and compare them to the pictures in a guide book. Or take them home and see if you can find them on the internet. If you already know the names of trees and plants, all you have to do is name them as you walk past them, and your children will learn them without any effort at all. Once they learn several, you can quiz them on various trees, and it becomes a game. They will feel proud of being able to identify the various species. The more knowledgeable they become about different topics, the more self-confident they will feel. While you are teaching them to identify plants, be sure to show them what Poison ivy looks like, even if it’s not tree!
Make a book of leaf rubbings. When your children bring home leaves, give them paper and crayons with their wrappers pealed off to make a leaf rubbings. Encourage them to label it and snap it into a three ring binder, and see how many different leaves they can find nearby.
Teach your children survival skills before you go on a hike--things like how to avoid hypothermia, and lostproofing them, as Tom Brown calls it. “Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children” is the most amazing book on this topic! It even shows how to make a shelter to survive freezing weather, and how make a survival fanny pack that enables you to have safe drinking water no matter where you go. This is a must read if you want to stay safe while having fun outdoors.
Learn animal tracks. Get a book that has animal prints, and study them before you go on a hike. Then look for footprints near water, or where the ground is soft. Take photos or make molds of the imprints. Incidentally, the book mentioned in the paragraph above is a great source for this, too.
Look at the stars, particularly if there is going to be a meteor shower. Invest in a book or kit especially made for comparing constellation charts to the real thing in the dark. There are also constellation projectors that can help you learn them inside before you go looking for them outside. Or, your kids can help you put glow in the dark stars on their ceilings in the patterns of constellations. Then every night as you kiss them goodnight, you can look for the constellations together. Then be sure to have an after dark walk so they can prove their knowledge of the night sky.
Build a Fort--this may not qualify as a “craft” but is something you make, and it is a terrific way to make sure your kids spend LOTS of time outside. Help your kids find the materials and make plans. Step back and let them make it themselves, but be available to give expert advice when they encounter a problem and ask for help.
Make acorns into people and animals by drawing faces on them, and adding other details to make them look more real. If you store acorns for a year, there are likely to get bugs eat them so you might want to throw these critters away after a couple of months--but be sure to take photo of their handiwork! If you want to keep them long term, buy wooden acorns.
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Collect pretty fall leaves and preserve them. Press them in a phone book, or other large book, or stack several smaller books on top of the book with leaves. Help you children put the leaves in a picture frame and hang it on the wall for a fall decoration.
Make pillar candles with leaves, berries, and pine cones your children have collected. Melt white candle stubs, or a pillar candle from the hundred yen store in an empty tin can in a pan of water. If you don’t do this, it is too easy to heat the wax up to the point that it starts burning. Obviously, children can’t do this without adult supervision. With proper precautions taken, however, it is a fairly easy craft to do. Poke the leaves and berries into the wax. Once it has cooled enough to start hardening, stick a skewer down the center, and put a wick in the hole.
Make photographic prints
Purchase photographic paper and show your children how to lay leaves, ferns, and found objects on top of it and leave it in the sun. Come back a few minutes later to find a silhouette of the objects. You can probably still find this kind of paper in science or children’s museum shops, and perhaps school supply stores.
Stick crafts
Boys always pick up sticks and find lots of uses for them, like playing swords. These active boys are not always so interested in crafts. But they might be if you expand their horizons and help them make a slingshot or bow and arrow (TEACH THEM SAFETY, TOO!!), or show them how to whittle with a pocket knife. Or help them use their treasures to make a birthday or Christmas present for Dad or Grandpa, such as gluing sticks to a photo frame (especially if it includes a photo of the two of them together) or glue sticks to a can for a rustic pen holder.
Paint rocks
Paint rocks that you pick up on walks. Klutz books publishes a book with all kinds of cute ideas. But no need for a book--just buy brushes and acrylic paints at a hundred yen store or Walmart, and let the kids use their imaginations.
Check out Family Fun for more fun crafts for kids.
Check out Craft Ideas for fall craft ideas for kids and adults.
Just for fun
Educational fall activities
Fall Crafts for kids
Kids tend to find all their fun indoors these days--on the internet, or with video games. Here are some ideas to entice them outdoors, and the brisk fall weather might just help them to see that nature can be cool, too.
