3 Fun and Unique Autumn Activities

Autumn is here and school is in. There are thousands of activities to celebrate the fall with your family. Most of them involve leaves and most of them are on Pinterest.

But don’t surf over there; it’s likely just going to make you feel bad about yourself.

Instead, get inspired by these 3 off-beat ideas that exist outside of the Pinterest hive-mind of leaf-shaped cookies and scarecrow puzzles.

1. Wear All of Your T-Shirts

I believe that I actually invented this when I was a kid, as perhaps lots of weird, singleton children probably also believe.

Like spring, autumn is the time of year to swap out clothes. The winter clothes come out of storage and the summer clothes go sit in a dark closet for another half-transit around the sun.

In 3rd grade I decided that since all of my t-shirts were piled on the bed, I should put all of them on. To see if I could, maybe. Then I headed over to my neighbor’s house to see if he noticed anything strange.

It turned out that he did notice something strange, since I resembled a pint-sized stay-puft marshmallow man. Then I peeled 12 t-shirts off of myself one after the other as we laughed.

Anyway, it probably ate up a couple hours. I suggest you take the initiative at home and add a heaping dash of absurdity to this autumn ritual. Go ahead and kick things off by putting on 4 or 5 of your own t-shirts. Say nothing and see if your kids pick up on it.

If they don’t notice, casually take 2 or 3 of them off and they should get the hint. If your little ones are like my boys, they will be clamoring to follow suit.

Now everybody is laughing and having fun, while also tottering around like Hans & Franz.

2. Bring Down Old Baby Toys

Autumn has always felt like the time of year I become nostalgic. I don’t know if it has more to do with the slow decline of sunlight each day or colder weather causing me to seek the feeling of warmth, which has  been found to be the evolutionary advantage of nostalgia in this study.

When this time of year rolls around I yearn for flannel, which leads me to yearn for my oldest flannel shirt, which leads me to remember the first time I listened to the album ‘Ten’ by Pearl Jam. Then I’m lost in reflection for a solid 10 minutes.

Recently and purely by happy accident, we discovered that Mr. B and Mr. C will play with baby toys for a couple hours if you pull them down out of the attic after they haven’t seen them for a couple of years.

I have to imagine there are some basic forms of nostalgic feelings of pleasure that drove their lengthy engrossment with these artifacts, but I don’t know for sure.

Did seeing the toys cause them to pleasurably regress to some younger state? I know I enjoy feeling like a child whenever I can, do they enjoy feeling like a baby in the same way?

All I can tell you is the delight in their eyes was visceral and they played quietly and with almost no comment for a couple of hours.

Your mileage will undoubtedly vary, but let us know what reactions you get.

3. Easter Egg Hunt with Eggs Filled with Leaves

Ok, just hear me out on this one before you pass judgment.

Our kids like nothing more than hearing that we are making a breakfast dinner. There’s something so joyful for them (and us) about breaking the ‘rules’ of mealtime and serving waffles and eggs for dinner.

By the same token, some families eschew holiday traditions by vacationing in a tropical locale for the winter holiday season, instead of bundling up by the Yule log. I’ve never tried it, but some people speak highly of it.

Deviation from the norm is refreshing. Variety is the spice of life.  You with me so far?

There are literally thousands of activities you can do with fall leaves. Why? Because they are all over your yard, somebody has to pick them up and your children are the least-skilled laborers and the most energetic candidates.

Painting with leaves, creating animals out of leaves, gluing the leaves to stuff to make pictures of trees, animals and seasonal images; I even found a recipe for baking an autumn spice cake that uses dry leaves in the recipe. All have their relative merits.

But see, you want to keep your kids attention for more than 5 minutes, right? You don’t want to end up as the only person sitting at the kitchen table cutting leaves into the shape of ducks after your kids have grown bored and wandered off, right?

So while you’re up in the attic bringing down the baby toys (see #2), go ahead and grab those plastic Easter eggs. In truth, there’s a good chance they melted and fused together during the heat of the summer, anyway.

If they are functioning and intact, you are in luck. The first part of the activity is gathering up the leaves. Newly fallen leaves are best for your purposes, as they are more flexible and less likely to crumble into orange powder.

After you gather 30 or 40 leaves, start stuffing those eggs. Kids love this part too, as long as they are manually dexterous enough to contribute.

Now go hide the eggs in the yard and turn the kids loose.

Why would your kid care about finding an Easter egg if there’s just a moldering leaf in it, you ask?

For the same reason that a kid loves opening a present, regardless of what’s actually inside. It’s the thrill of the hunt, the fun of discovery as they push over the watering can to reveal a big, shiny, yellow egg hidden underneath.

If you need to add interest, set a reward at the start of the hunt. Each kid who brings back at least 10 leaves gets a little treat.

Best case scenario, your kid decides to bend the rules and pad his total by picking up more leaves he finds on the lawn.

When they start losing interest, flip the script on them and let them hide the eggs for you. Putting your little one in charge usually always results in renewed enthusiasm for any task.

In Conclusion

As I’m fondly recalling the Autumns of my youth spent lost between the pages of books, seeing my favorite bands live in concert and falling in love with my wife Sarah for the first time (autumn 1995), I will also be wondering what activities and traditions your family enjoys at this time of year.

Please write a comment below to tell us what autumn activities make the biggest impact on your family. Sign up for our weekly newsletter by entering your email address in the box below this post. Or email us directly at info@parentswho.com and we can swap leaf baking recipes.