Autumn Fun Outdoors - Five Creative Activities for Early Years!

Hues of yellow, orange, red, purple, and brown make Autumn one of the most beautiful seasons.

There’s no wonder children are excited to be outdoors, exploring, creating and playing; during this time of the year. There is a distinct smokey smell in the air. Days become shorter and many animals prepare for hibernation for the bitter cold months ahead. All these wonderful changes interest and inspire children to get outdoors. Autumn provides many outdoor activities from playing in fallen leaves to hunting for conkers. Early years children will learn all about the harvest season through exploring the great outdoors; inspiring them to collect leaves, conkers, branches, pinecones and many other autumn resources.

Below are our favourite Autumn activities, designed to enhance fine and gross motor skills amongst early years. Help your children get creative this autumn by collecting the following essentials. All you’ll need for the creative activities below are LOTS of leaves, acorns, branches and pinecones. Alongside, paints, a paintbrush, linen, felt, pom-poms, yarn, ribbons, PVA glue, sticky tape, string, cling film, rolling pin and scissors (under adult supervision).

Autumn Nature Mobile Craft

An autumn nature mobile is a perfect craft for this time of year. Why not take your children on a forest hunt to find the objects they want to include on their nature mobile. This wonderful activity inspires early years to get outdoors and collect many seasonal treats such as leaves, pinecones, bark, sticks and conkers. There is so much on the ground right now! All they’ll need is a large stick, some string and scissors. All you need to do is make a small hole in the object you want to hang for example leaves, then tie a piece of string through and make a knot. Then tie another not around the large stick. Repeat several times with different or the same objects to make your very own autumn nature mobile. Enjoy!

Leafy Linens

There is soo much you can do with leaves! Create beautiful lady linens with your little one this autumn. All you need is a few leaves, a paintbrush, different coloured paints or fabric paints, linen, and a rolling pin (that you don’t mind getting paint on). All you need to do is paint the leaves in different colours, place them on the linen and simply roll over the leaf with a rolling pin. Then peel off the leaf and repeat. Once you’ve done this let it dry. Hurray, you’ve created your very own Leafy Linens!

Bright Branches

This project is great for using up all your leftover craft materials! All you’ll need is a medium-size branch as a base. Then, get your little ones to wrap ribbons and yarn around the branch. For extra dazzle, why not glue on some pom-poms and other sparkly embellishments on the branches or paint stripes between the wrapped areas to make your branches even more colourful!

Cone Critters

How cute are these! Why not craft cute animals, with your child, by using pinecones? All you’ll need is a piece of felt, glue, scissors, paints and pom-poms. Firstly, you need to cut a small circle of felt, snipping out a 90-degree-triangle wedge. Then overlap the two cut edges - glue into a pine cone shape. Paint your pinecone, if you wish, to match your chosen animal. Once dry, glue to the tip of a plain or painted cone. Cut two smaller circles, then attach with glue for ears. Finish with a small pom-pom for a nose and two small dabs of paint for the eyes.

Autumn Leaf Window

Autumn leaves are beautiful, with a rich array of colours and shapes, they look fantastic as an indoor stained glass window. All you’ll need is PLENTY of leaves, PVA glue, sticky tape and cling film. Simply roll out a long piece of clingfilm on the table (don’t cut the cling film as it will be folded over at the end to enclose the leaves). Then you and your little ones will need to coat the leaves in glue, arrange and place them onto the cling film - leaving an inch gap around the edge! Once the clingfilm has been filled, roll out some more to cover them. After this use sticky tape along the edges, then fold over to seal. Bravo! Your stained glass window is complete. Simply stick them to your window and wait for the sun to shine through to see a hue of autumn tones.