Fall has always been a favorite season of mine. Pumpkin patches, apple picking and crunching leaves work together to create an atmosphere of fun and exploration for children. Over the years we’ve collected acorns, gone on hay rides, and gone apple tasting. I’ve even broken some rules and climbed apple trees that weren’t supposed to be climbed.
Oh yes, yes, I did.
Between all the outdoor fun you can have with your kids during fair weather and the great books, crafts, and snacks to make inside, you’re set for making beautiful memories this autumn.
Get Reading
- Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White
- Fall Leaves Fall by Zoe Hall
- How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro
Get Crafting
- Make apple prints
- Collect leaves and fall flowers and preserve them between sheets of waxed paper
- Create papier mache (sorta) acorns.
- Bring the outdoors in and arrange displays of pinecones, leaves, acorns, and sticks.
Get Cooking
- Involve the kids in helping to make Taco Soup in the crockpot.
- Make Slab Apple Pies – so delicious and so easy for kids to help
- Apple Crowns are a healthier alternative to ice cream sundaes.
- Decorate some fall flower cupcakes.
Recipe: Sunflower & Mums Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 batch cupcakes, baked according to package directions
- 1 batch Homemade Buttercream, tinted yellow
- chocolate chips
- candy corn
Instructions
- Frost cupcakes with a thin layer of frosting.
- For sunflowers: Place candy corn around edges, tips pointing out. Fill center with chocolate chips, tips pointing up.
- For mums: Place candy corn in frosting, tips pointing up. Cover surface of cake.
Get Out!
- Walk through the woods and collect leaves and acorns.
- Go apple picking.
- Visit the pumpkin patch.
- Rake leaves and jump in the piles.
- Have a bonfire and toast marshmallows.
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My kids love to get out this time of year. My daughter has a huge collection of acorns from out walks.
What an awesome collection of ideas! I am going to bookmark this page!!!
We are an apple and pumpkin picking family. We’ve been apple picking once already, but I’m sure we’ll have to go again — they’re not lasting long! (Also, I really like some of the later-ripening varieties.) And I’m looking forward to pumpkin season: there’s a big blank spot on our grocery shelves where the canned pumpkin used to be, and a note apologizing to customers that there won’t be any more until this year’s harvest.
Excellent ideas- love all the lists. Those cupcakes are adorable!
Here is one of my favorite apple dessert recipes that is so super easy!
http://eatathomecooks.com/2009/10/apple-crinkle.html
Sharing a link to this post with my Facebook readers!
I love the apple picking pic. Classic
🙂 Allie
Football: http://thecozycountryhome.blogspot.com/2010/09/one-town-one-team-one-dream.html and we love Monster Munch: http://thecozycountryhome.blogspot.com/2010/09/halloween-monster-munch.html !
Ohhhhh! That sunflower cupcake is so cute and creative… what a sweet idea.. 🙂
We are having dinner with friends tomorrow night and I am bringing dessert. I spent most of the afternoon surfing my favorite blogs for inspiration (what did we do before blogs & internet??). I saw the candy corn cupcakes and decided to make them. They are so easy and my 6 year old had so much fun decorating them! It also helped that Walgreens has Brachs candy corn on sale for $.69 this week. Thanks for the inspiration!
I love candy corn and those cupcakes would be perfect to make with the kids!