There are lots of fun easy activities you can do with all those Autumn treasures that will keep your kids busy.
I have made a list of easy mess free activities and messy play activities all tried and tested over the last 15 years using all your Autumn finds. The vast majority of items needed for these activities you will already have them in your home. I have also developed a free download Autumn activity pack with 10 free activity pages which might come in handy on a rainy day.
Mess free Autumn activities
Nature hunt:
We love heading out on a nature hunt to collect leaves, pine cones, conkers and acorns. Why not take a bucket and fill it with all your treasures.
Leaf colour hunt:
Very simply take a piece of paper, draw and colour a brown, green, yellow, red, orange leaf and head off and see if you can find one of each!
Now you have a bucket full of Autumn finds, what to do with them!
Nature tray:
Take all your Autumn finds pour them onto a tuff tray or a large storage container, add some things like toilet rolls holders, containers, pipes and left them explore!
Add some diggers or trucks to make it an Autumn construction site!
Tinker tray:
A tinker tray is a tray with lots of different resources for a child to explore and create with. We love adding playdoe to our Autumn treasures as you can use and create with the playdoe in lots of different ways.
Leaves:
Some easy mess free leaf activities.
Cutting
Using a hole puncher
Make leaf buddies
Leaf rubbing
Use them for counting
Click the link below to see our 5 easy mess free activity reel with leaves.
Conkers:
Some easy mess free conker activities.
Making patterns (pre writing)
Posting conkers
Conker rescue
Transferring with tongs/spoon/tweezers
Threading
Pouring & scooping conkers
Transporting
Counting
Click the link below to see our 5 easy mess free activity reel with conkers.
Pine cones:
Some mess free pine cones activities.
Transferring with tongs/spoon
Pouring & scooping
Posting
Weaving with Pipe cleaner
Pipe cleaner/elastic band rescue
Balance
Pine cones prints with playdoe
Autumn trees with crepe paper
Counting
Click the link below to see our 5 easy mess free activity reel with conkers.
You can do most of the activities mentioned above with acorns too.
Messy play activities
Ice play:
Simple take all you Autumn treasures, put them into ice trays or a container, fill with water and pop it into the freezer over night.
We use squeezy bottles like empty shampoo bottles, condiment squeezy bottles, spray bottles and fill them up with warm water. You can also us some pipettes and medicine syringes to rescue the Autumn treasures.
Painting:
Tape a page to a container like an IKEA box, put a few blobs of paint on the page then add in conkers or acorns or pine cones and shake the container and watch your Autumn treasures make a pattern. So it's like marble painting.
Leaf painting and prints. There is a two ways to do this. The first you can hold down the leaf with one hand and paint the outline of the leaf so when you lift the leaf underneath is still white so you can see the shape of the leaf. You can paint your leaf and then make prints with it on a white page.
Jelly play:
Take a deep container, add some Autumn treasures, pour in the jelly mix and leave over night to set. We added some utensils and tools to help them rescue the Autumn treasures but you could just let them rescue them with their hands.
⚠️ Warning this gets super sticky! If you don't have a tuff tray why not pop them into the bath and allow them explore this activity in the bath to minimise the stickiness!
Frozen jelly:
Don't throw out that mushed up jelly. Stick it in a container add your Autumn treasures (or other toys) and pop it into the freezer for another activity another day.
⚠️ Warning please only use tools you know your child can safely use. Never leave your child unattended with sharp objects.
Shaving foam:
Simple add some shaving foam into a container and add in some Autumn treasures and let them have some messy fun! You could match this activity up with a container full of water so they can wash them afterwards.
Water play:
My boys love pouring in all their Autumn treasures into water with lots of utensils and let their imagination go wild! Mine love pretending it's Autumn soup!
Autumn potions:
Gather up a few different materials and some utensils including your Autumn treasures and let them make some potions. It's advised to do this one outside as it can get very messy!
Autumn activity pack:
I designed this activity pack around Autumn time in Ireland. I designed this 10 page activity pack so I can pull it out on a rainy day or give the boys one of the activities sheets while I make or take a phone call or even just try to have a hot coffee. Each page can be printed individually. There is a mixture of colouring in, puzzles, word search, colour by number plus more. The page with the Irish Autumn animals is designed to be used along side other activities and to encourage conversation around some of the animals typically seen in Ireland in the Autumn.
Click the link for your free Autumn activity pack.
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Please note this Autumn Activity pack is for personal use only and not for public distribution ©️
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Hope you have fun with your Autumn treasures.