This massive collection of fall activities for kids of all ages will keep families playing all autumn long. Look through the fall activities list and choose your favorites while enjoying the season outdoors and inside.
Fall = fun activities for families!
We live in Texas where the temps are brutal in the summer, and there’s not much we want to do outside other than play in the pool. For us, Autumn means a chance to go on fun family dates. Each Saturday morning we do an activity together as a family from our fall bucket list.
Here are just a few of the activities we are looking forward to doing together this autumn.
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Big List of Fall Activities for Kids
You are going to wish that fall lasted longer so you have more time to do all these autumn activities with your kids!
Do a Fall Kids Craft
- Pick a preschool fall craft to do together, and have fun being creative together. While that fall crafts for kids list is targeted at preschoolers, toddlers and older kids will find plenty to do. It is more fun when the whole family has fun together!
- Make Jack-o-lanterns from items in the recycle bin, orange paint and black foam stickers.
- Do a Halloween craft with your kids. Here are a more than dozen projects you can create with your kids.
- For a fun soap carving ideas, have your kids carve their own arrowheads using a bar of soap.
- Make your own candles at home by dipping yarn into wax — this is a great stormy afternoon craft activity for the kids.
- Use our fall leaf pattern to make tissue paper leaves with a traditional crumple craft for kids.
Decorate the Family Home
Decorate the front door — the wackier the better! These simple and silly ideas for fall family decorations will make you the talk of the neighborhood in a good way!
Make Fall Slime
- This steps to make slime end with a green goo-ey mess that is super fun for play.
- Pumpkin slime. Goop is a blast to play with. This goop is pumpkiny-orange.
- Make fall slime to play with — kids love this ooey gooey stuff!
- This glow in the dark slime is fun to play with in the evening now that the sun goes down earlier.
Make Fall Play Dough
Pumpkin pie play dough — this stuff smells SO good! Or one of our collection of fall playdough recipes for kids!
Spider Web Hunt
For an indoor kids activity, go on a spider hunt and see if you can find any cobwebs hiding in your house. After you dust them, create your own spider web using popsicle sticks, tape, and pipe cleaners.
Autumn Art Projects for Kids
- Create Fall Art. Adding an outline can really liven up a picture. Help your youngest tots paint and create wall-worthy art with some black glue. They paint scribbles and you outline the work into the shape of a leaf.
- Do your kids collect acorns? Mine love to squirrel them away. This is a great kids painting activity using acorns to make art.
- Make fall spice paints with ginger, pumpkin and more!
- Kids can paint this Andy Warhol inspired art with four leaves painted in different bright colors.
- Check out these rock painting ideas for kids and then leave your rock art designs for others to find outside!
Fall Sensory Play for Kids
Fall sensory bottle — fill it with all the best autumn colors!
Spooky and slimy sensory — with spaghetti?!? Dye some spaghetti bright orange and dark black, add a bit of veggie oil so they are extra slimy, and have fun squishing and squeezing!
Have fun with food and the kids — Make a Snakey Jello. This activity uses jell-o (Jelly for UK folks) and toy snakes for some squishy fun.
Backyard Fall Fun for the Whole Family
Build a catapult, take it outside and put a pebble or two inside. Watch them fly and measure how far the items went.
Go camping in your own backyard with a DIY PVC pipe Tent.
Autumn Owl Ideas
- Create an owl craft with scraps of old magazines — my kids are in a cutting kick and would love this craft.
- Make a owl from TP tubes using feathers, scraps of fabric and buttons. This craft for kids is adorable. They are toilet paper roll owls that are made with scraps of fabric. What fun to make a whole family of owls…one for every member of your family.
- Try out this cute owl craft for kids using the printable template.
Pretend Play
Watch your kids pretend and play in a “world” with leaves outdoors for your kids to explore through. This family created a whole house with different rooms. Afterwards, rake them up and have fun jumping.
Create your own costume for Halloween! Here are some simple costumes you can make with your kids.
Exploring Nature in Fall with Kids
Nature Walk
Go on a nature walk to a new destination. Bring along a nature bag for the kids, to help them document what they see.
Nature Scavenger Hunt
Go on an outdoor scavenger hunt for kids with this printable guide. Even younger kids can play along because it is all done in pictures.
Plant for Spring
Plant bulbs for the spring. My kids love to get muddy — gardening with kids is dirty and fun!
Explore Camouflage Outside
Play this camouflage game for kids by exploring how animals can hide in the autumn colors.
Make Art from Your Nature Hunt
I love this idea of drawing with items found in nature. The whole family can get involved!
Donate to Local Food Bank as a Family
Donate food items to a food bank in your area. As the holidays approach, food banks are often strapped for supplies.
Fall Family Activities with Food
- Make a pumpkin pie with your kids. Have extra filling? Add it to a smoothie with some yogurt.
- Go bobbing for apples. Fill a tub with apples and see if you can get one with your teeth. Afterwards, make candy apples as a treat to enjoy with your kids.
- Make s’mores on the patio with your kids — use a solar oven to warm them.
- Try experimenting with s’mores and adding extra ingredients to your s’mores, like berries or bananas or try our favorite campfire cones recipe even if you aren’t at the campfire!
- Make your own apple cider by adding cinnamon sticks, nutmeg and honey to juiced apples (if possible, get fresh pressed juice)!
- Churn your own butter — this is a fun activity for a kiddo who loves to move!
- Make popcorn balls. Ooey-gooey caramel popcorn balls shout “fall is coming” to me. These are one of our kids’ favorite fall traditions.
- Practice fractions as you chop up apples and mix ingredients while baking an Apple Pie with kids.
- Bake pumpkin seeds with this easy pumpkin seed recipe. I love carving out our pumpkins each year and using the guts to create a magnesium-rich snack for the kids and I to enjoy.
- Make Candy Corn Cookies — Layer three colors of sugar cookie dough and follow these instructions to make your own wedged treats.
- Bake a batch of pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies — this recipe is a loved favorite of more than one quirky family!
- Bake apple chips. Thinly slice apples, spray them with oil, and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on them. Bake them in the oven till they are crispy.
Outdoor Family Fun
Ride Bikes
Play games during a bike ride. Use Chalk to create start and end points on a race, or to make an obstacle course of sorts for your kids to weave through.
Scary Leaf Skeletons…Kinda
Take a collection of leaves and make leaf skeletons — soak the leaves in washing soda until the chloroform disintegrates, and you are left with the leaf structure.
Hayride Time!
Go on a hayride — we love to visit the local orchard, pick apples, and go on a hayride.
Collect Leaves for Rubbing
Take crayons and some of your favorite leaves and layer the leaves between pages of paper. Rub on the pages with a crayon to see the leaf pattern emerge. It is a really fun leaf rubbing craft!
Rotting Pumpkin Experiment
Set a pumpkin outdoors and journal about the pumpkin’s decomposition as it rots. Be sure to take pictures of the pumpkin in its various stages.
DIY Tree Blocks
After you prune your trees, chop up the logs and the twigs, clean them off and bring them inside to make tree blocks.
Feed the Birds
Feed the birds with a kid-made bird feeder craft using toilet paper tubes or pine cones, peanut butter and seed.
Trick or Treat!
Go trick-or-treating with your children. We love saying hi to all our neighbors!
Turkey Races are Fun
Have turkey races! This is a fun Thanksgiving day activity.
Make a Scarecrow for the Front Yard
Stuff old clothes to create a scarecrow for your front yard — a children’s Thanksgiving craft.
Make Fall Leaf Lacing Cards
These fall leaf printable lacing cards are a fun quiet afternoon activity perfect for an autumn day.
Fall Family Activities
Eerie Noise Creation
Fun Halloween Kids Activity — Make Eerie sounds! All you need is a plastic cup, a paperclip, string (wool is best) and a piece of paper towel.
Fall Science
Do some simple Kitchen Science experiments with the leftover Trick-or-Treating candy.
Visit the Bookstore or Local Library
Spend the afternoon at a bookstore researching a project for the winter months.
Scarf Craft
Afternoon craft activity — Make matching scarves for you and your daughter to enjoy together. Here is a collection of no-sew scarves you can make in an afternoon.
Make a Thankfulness Tree
This is a great family craft for Thanksgiving, make a thankful tree detailing all the things you are thankful for this past year.
Free Autumn Printables for Kids
- We have a big list of free fall printables for kids too!
- Download & print our free leaf coloring pages – they make a good craft foundation too!
- Fall math crossword puzzles are fun and challenging.
- I love this free printable pumpkin coloring pages set.
- Make your own leaf drawing with this printable how to draw a leaf step by step guide.
- Fall tree coloring pages let you color all the autumn colors!
- Our fall coloring pages have been one of the most popular fall activities on Kids Activities Blog for years! Don’t miss out.
- Acorn coloring pages are just plain fun for autumn!
Does your family have a fall bucket list? What fall activities for kids are on the list? Which was your favorite autumn idea?
