Guest Post: Outdoor Autumn Activities for Kids

By: Isabella Woods

Yes, it may have turned colder in the past few months, but it’s still mild enough to get the kids outdoors – especially if they’re wrapped up warm. So turn off the games console, switch off the TV, and head off into the great outdoors for adventures galore. After all, autumn is far too beautiful to be seen through murky double-glazing.

If your kids are far from the outdoorsy types and they throw a tantrum at the mere thought of going on a country walk, you’re going to have to get creative. Ok, so a standard walk might not float their boat, but add in some fun elements and you’ll have them begging for another outing asap. Read on to discover our favourite outdoor autumn activities for kids…

Orienteering

If you’ve got a dog and you take him on regular walks in a local park you probably won’t have to do much prepping for this. Ok, so it’s not full-on orienteering, but it’s a start.

You’ll need to plot five to ten sites for your kids to find – the number of sites you decide on should depend on the age and energy levels of your kids (if they’re not used to running around outdoors build them up gently). Mark these points down on a piece of paper in the order you want the kids to find them and work out (take a compass on your next dog walk) whether they’ll need to go north, east, south or west for instance to reach this particular site. Give them simple steps to find each site from the previous site and you’ll have an easy orienteering game your kids are bound to find fun.

Tip: Try it out yourself and once you’re sure it works, hand it over to the kids. If they’ve got friends over, get them involved too – team work is a lot of fun and everyone loves a bit of competition. Do it just for the thrill of finding all the sites or incentivize them with the promise of a treat for the winner. Make sure your kids enjoy this activity during daylight hours as otherwise, in all the excitement, they might end up trampling over your dog leaving you to fork out on the best pet insurance out there.

Animal Tracking

Even in the most built-up cities, wildlife still manages to survive. Get your kids interested in the animals that live around us by introducing them to animal tracking. Go for a walk in some nearby woods with a magnifying glass and turn the walk more into a hunt for signs of wildlife than a stomp through the woods. See what paw prints they can spot and identify different animal droppings (maybe one boys will enjoy more!). Once you’ve got them interested, you can carry on the fun back at home. Simply find a container, dish, or tray and fill it with sand or mud. Then add a bit of food – like some chopped up carrot or lettuce leaves – and leave it outside in your garden for a few days.

Hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to have a visitor to your garden and they’ll leave their paw print embedded in the sand or mud. Your child can then make a copy of the mark and use a wildlife book or the internet to try and find out what sort of animal the paw print belongs to.

Autumnal Art

Take a leaf out of the squirrels’ book and get foraging. Autumn is a great time to hunt down nature’s bounty and while there might be plenty out there to eat (chestnuts, mushrooms and so on), for kids we recommend foraging for art materials.

At this time of year, leaves come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and in a gorgeous array of greens, browns and reds. If you’ve got a child who’s particularly arty get them outdoors with a bag and they’ll soon have plenty of wonderful things to create a stunning collage with. Leaves, tree bark, twigs, conkers, chestnuts and pinecones all make great material to get arty with. Use them on their own or add in things from your home like dried pasta shapes and bits of colourful fabric. Add in big sheets of paper and some glue and you’ve got an activity to keep them amused for hours – and a piece of art to treasure for ever.