The Best Autumn Activities for Toddlers
The morning air is crisp, the grass is dewy and the days are getting shorter. Soon all the leaves will be changing colour; autumn is certainly upon us! That means we’re breaking out all the oranges, yellows, reds and greens as we celebrate the season.
Here are some of the best autumn theme activities for toddlers! Some of these are our absolute favourite autumn themed activities.
Spin Art Leaves
You can’t go wrong with spin art! You might not expect to see it on a list of the best autumn themed activities for toddlers, but you can expect to see it in any list I make. It’s one of my favourite art activities to do with the kids. The results are gorgeous and it’s surprisingly not too messy, the paint is all contained in the spinner.
You’ll need:
- Salad spinner (make sure it’s enclosed with no holes for paint to fly out of! Try the one from IKEA for $5)
- Paint
- Cardstock or heavier paper
- Tape
How to:
- Cut a shape out of paper and tape it to the bottom (inside) of the salad spinner.
- Squeeze paints on top. My toddler adores this part and inevitably uses way too much paint. We really like the squeeze bottle MALA paints from IKEA.
- Close the lid and SPIN! It’s a great workout for toddlers.
- Open for the big reveal! Repeat (fair warning, you might get addicted).
- Take the paper out and put aside to dry (this is the messiest part, it’s best to have a paper spread out and ready to put it on after).
Autumn Coloured Playdough
Playdough is one of our absolute favourites and certainly deserves a spot on anyone’s list of best autumn activities for toddlers. There are SO many ways to use it! Here we made some autumn coloured dough and stamped it with wooden leaves.
If you’d like to grab a copy of my playdough recipe (including a cool trick to make different colours like this!) head to my playdough post and enter your email to download the recipe (plus free printable number mats)
You can try making trees, apples, pumpkins and lots of other fall themed items with playdough too!
Leaf Cutting Tray
I love how easy this is.
1) Head out on a walk and gather up leaves
2) Pop them in a tray with some scissors and let our kiddo get snip happy (under supervision with age appropriate scissors of course)!
3) Use the leftover cut up bits as nature confetti! Try sprinkling it over glue.
Counting Practice - Autumn Sensory Bin
Pop some leaves into a bin with acorns, pinecones and whatever other natural finds you have (or use fabric leaves like these!).
Challenge your child to count out a certain number of items. “Can you pull out 5 leaves?”
Googley-Eyed Leaves
This couldn’t be simpler!
Bring some leaves home the next time you’re out and about.
Colour or paint the leaves if you’d like, then glue on some eyes and draw a face.
Apple Prints
This is a classic toddler activity for when fall rolls around!
Cut an apple in half and dip it in fall coloured paints. Press on the page and tada!
Tip: use a knife to notch out a little handle, easier for little hands to grab onto.
Apple Study & Sticker Match
The best toddler activities usually incorporate books, if you ask me. My son really enjoys non-fiction books, and he adores this one about Apples by Gail Gibbons.
We read through the book and learned loads about apples. Then he matched the apple sticker to the right spot on the tree. If you don’t have apple stickers red dot stickers work just as well!
Apple Taste Test
An apple taste test is a great activity for toddlers. Grab a variety of apples next time you’re at the store or market.
Talk about how the apples are the same and different (colours, size etc). Draw and colour pictures of them.
Dig in and talk about whether each is sweet or sour. Rank them in order of least to most favourite. Record your findings and stash them away till next year and you can see if your child’s preferences have changed!
Amazing acitivities ???
Thanks for sharing
some brilliant creative ideas. Thank you ?