It’s Easy to Fall in Love with Outside Learning During Autumn!

The change of seasons has us excited to take our playtime and learning outdoors again. Fall weather has already ushered in cooler mornings and evenings throughout Georgia, with some in north Georgia already pulling on sweaters and hoodies! Before long, you should start seeing leaves turning from green to gold and red, and eventually falling from the trees. Nature gives us so much to work with in the autumn to make learning fun.

As you know, with young children, playing and learning happens simultaneously which makes being outside right now even more advantageous for you and your child. Here are four ideas for you to incorporate into your outside time over the next few weeks.

1. Plan a Scavenger Hunt!
Older children who are learning to read might do well with just a list of items but your younger children will need images of the items that are on your scavenger hunt list.  You can easily find printable visual lists, like these from The Resourceful Mama, with a quick Google search or make your own like this one from the Kids Activities Blog.

This simple and fun activity will help your children learn about the world around them while also teaching them the names of various items, shapes and colors.

2. Explore Nature’s Textures and Shapes.
Plan a walk through your neighborhood or a nearby park that includes a variety of trees and paths. To help with your exploration of textures and shapes, bring with you a small bag to collect items, as well as some playdough, plain white paper, and crayons.

As you go about your walk you can use the playdough to take imprints of different tree barks and compare them. Here’s some good ideas from How Wee Learn on other ideas how you can use playdough to explore nature.

While on your walk, you can use the paper and crayons for tree and rock rubbings like demonstrated by I Can Teach My Child, or have your child draw what they see on your walk. Be intentional about stopping to have your child try their hand at drawing a pretty flower or tracing a leaf.

By collecting items in your bag to take home, and saving the imprints, rubbings and drawings, you can plan times later in the week to bring these out and talk more about what you found in nature. This is a great way to introduce new words, such as rough, curvy, or smooth, as you describe the items your child found or documented as well as to support sensory play.

3. Create Art with Fall Leaves.
There is so much you can do with fall leaves! Once they begin to fall from the trees, spend a little time each day collecting them to use later for art projects. Here’s a few ideas for how you can use the leaves to create art:

• Set out some paints and paintbrushes to have your little one paint the leaves.

• Help your child make a leaf collage by gluing multiple colored and shaped leaves onto a sturdy piece of paper. Include other findings from your walks, such as twigs, acorns, seeds, etc.

• Create leaf stamps by painting leaves and then pressing them onto paper.

• Organize a beautiful hanging leaf exhibit by tying a string around the leaf stems then hanging at different lengths in front of a window or blank wall.

• Make fall foliage animals, courtesy of Martha Stewart. Download Martha’s animals template, trace the shapes over a colorful assortment of foliage, cut, and reinforce with clear tape onto card stock or paper.

This activity helps develop fine motor skills as well as supports sensory development and learning colors.

4. Make a Fall Sensory Bin.
This is an easy and free activity that provides lots of fun. As you do your nature walks, collect items that you see: twigs, seeds, acorns, leaves, small rocks, pine cones and etc. Take them home and store in a small to medium sized clear bin or large bowl. Add some dyed pasta to your bin to add color and more textures to liven up the bin.

This project reinforces language and supports sensory development.

If you and your child do any of these projects, we’d love for you to share them with us on Quality Care for Children’s Facebook and Instagram pages! Tag us at @QCCGeorgia and use the hashtags #GPPFallFun and #GeorgiaParentPower.