With winter drawing in, here are some fun and easy autumn activities you can do with your children before the new season

Just because Halloween is over, it doesn’t mean Autumn has to stop here. With the beginning of the new month and longer, crisp nights ahead, Autumn is still in full swing. The trees are losing their leaves, the leaves are changing colours and the smell of pumpkin spice is still lingering around. Autumn is a great season for all kinds of activities with your children, whether it’s outside playing Conkers or indoors creating leaf collages; there are so many wonderful ideas out there. Here are a few that caught our eye at Manny & Me.

Leaf hedgehog

This little guy is one of my favourites. I came across this idea on Pocketnannies, an online platform created by three nannies who are passionate about creating an engaging and happy environment for the children in our care. We’ve also written a blog about the amazing work they’re doing which you can read here.

This simple leaf hedgehog is a piece of cake to make. All you’ll need is a pen, a piece of paper, PVA glue and a ton of autumn leaves. You can be as creative as you like by adding different shaped leaves to create layers on the hedgehog, or use different coloured pens for its face. Pocketnannies recommend covering your design with some PVA to stop the leaves from curling. Take a look at some others we found for inspiration:

You can also use pinecones instead of leaves if you want to save time. They are super cute too!

Conkers

Everyone’s familiar with the classic game of conkers, albeit a little old-fashioned. Some might argue that nothing beats the simplicity of knocking the other player’s conker until it cracks; however here are some other easy yet creative ideas on how you can use conkers.

Make a conker snake

A step up from having one conker on a string, why not add a few more to make a conker snake! You’ll need a handful of conkers and some string or wool to thread them on, plus any extra items to decorate it- such as paint or sticky eyes. Grown ups, you’ll have to make the holes which can easily be done using a nail or metal skewer and then, let your children do the rest! Get creative and paint on a face and patterns on the body, or keep it simple and just add some googly eyes like Red Ted Art did. The great thing about this activity is that you can do this either outside or indoors.

Pencil toppers

How about cute pencil toppers? We got this idea from The Woodland Trust website. It’s a great activity for children of all ages. Here are their instructions:

First, get a grown up to make a hole for the pencil. The easiest way to do this is to stick scissors into the conker and twist it round until the hole is big enough. Then glue on some wool for hair. You could also get creative and try making them into little creatures. Use felt to cut out some mouse ears, or perhaps feathers and a beak.

It’s as simple as that! Here are some pictures to give you some ideas – but remember, you can be as creative as you like.

Apple printing

After rummaging around outside with your little ones for lots of different autumn things, you should have a mix of conkers, leaves, pinecones and maybe even fallen apples amongst your collection. The latter makes for a great stamp. Simply slice the apples in half, paint the halves with your desired colour and stamp! You can create many images with these apple stamps and children love being creative with new tools. If your kids are still clinging onto Halloween, use orange paint to create easy pumpkins and paint on the features once the stamp dries. Easy peasy.

Pumpkin slime

Do you have a few leftover pumpkins lying around after halloween? Maybe you didn’t get the chance to carve every single one of them? If so, instead of throwing them away, why not use them to make pumpkin slime. Yes, we said slime! Here is a great recipe for making pumpkin slime we’ve taken from Learn Play Imagine.

It may seem hard to do in a carved pumpkin, but as long as the slime doesn’t reach the carved section closest to the bottom of the pumpkin you should be all set! Try making the slime in a bowl first and then adding it to the pumpkin later, or use a fresh pumpkin you may have lying around that you didn’t get the chance to carve before Halloween. I can guarantee that your kids will love making this, or at least love playing with the slime once it’s made.

There are hundreds of ideas for crafts and activities to do with your kids this autumn and we’ve shared a handful of our favourites with you to try. The great thing about arts and crafts is seeing how creative you and your children can be! We hope to have inspired you with one of these fun and simple ideas.