Memory Making Activities to Do With Your Child in Fall

Fall is my favorite season of the year. The smell of leaves, the beautiful colors on the trees, the pumpkins on many doorsteps. It's the time of year to drink apple cider, decorate the doorstep with pumpkins and cornstalks, and inhale the scent of wild grapevines along the side of the road. Fall is an amazing time to create memory making activities to do with your children. The list below will give you some great starter ideas. If you know of any more, please add them in the comment section below.

* Rake Leaves into Huge Piles and Jump in them with your Children. If your kids are anything like mine, the refrain, again, again" will ring through the air as you rake leaves into piles and let the kids jump in them. They will also love to be buried in large piles and have you pretend to find them. My kids liked to bury me as well.

* Make Pumpkin People. Stuff some old pants and shirts or jackets with leaves and add a pumpkin for a head. Set a few of your pumpkin people up on chairs on the front porch. Let the kids make one for each member of the family for some creative fun.

* Go to a Pumpkin Farm. Make it a family day to go to a local pumpkin farm and let each child pick their own pumpkin. Whether you choose to just decorate the steps with them, or carve them into jack o lanterns, a trip to the pumpkin farm is always a seasonal treat.

* Go to a Working Cider Mill. Taking the kids to an old-fashioned cider mill to see how apples are pressed and made into apple cider is a wonderful educational activity. And going home with a gallon of apple cider is a sweet way to remember your visit for a few days afterward. You can sometimes even buy homemade cider donuts at the cider mill to go with your apple cider at home.

* Go Apple Picking. Like berry picking in the summer, apple picking is another wonderful way to enjoy the produce of the season. Picking apples as a family will create wonderful memories, as will going home and baking apple pies and sweet treats together.

* Cut Jack O Lanterns Together. Many an October night is made festive by the smell of pumpkin guts in a family's kitchen! Gooey and smelly, the inside of a pumpkin is a wonderland for a child to feel, smell, and scrape out. Carefully supervise children when cutting, or if they are too young, let them draw a face on their pumpkins and you can carve the face out with a knife yourself. Make sure to save the pumpkin seeds to...

* Bake Pumpkin Seeds for a Nutritional Snack. Have your children save the seeds from inside their jack o lanterns. Put all seeds in a large pot and pull off the pumpkin strings from them. Rinse in water, then blot dry with a paper towel. Lay out the seeds on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt and bake in a 200-degree oven. Flip seeds over and salt again on the other side. Then flip every 15 minutes until seeds look dry. Cool on flat plates. When all seeds have been baked, store in a large plastic bag. These seeds make wonderful and healthy snacks for days to come.

* Go to a Country Fair or Festival. Fall is filled with all types of fairs and festivals celebrating pumpkins, apples, etc. Go to at least one every year, and try a new one each year too. The kids will look forward to going to the same fair year after year and will have their favorite booths or displays they want to return to every year.

* Go Horseback riding. Fall is a wonderful time to go on a trail ride on horseback. It's not too hot for the horses and the colors of the trees and the scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves will fill your nostrils and create a warm and wonderful feeling of enjoyable family time.

* Make Acorn People. My grandmother was famous for taking us out on the road to take a nice Fall walk. Our goal was to find acorns that still had their tops, or caps on them. We would carefully carry them home and use magic markers to draw faces on them. We would have whole families and keep them in little boxes. It was great fun to bring our acorn families to school and show our teachers and other students our Fall creations.

* Take the Family to a Football Game. Get the kids excited about one of the season's most exciting sports. If there's a high school or college in your town, they most likely have a football team. Make sure to have a tailgating party as a family or with another local family or families. Good food and a football toss out in the crisp air will ensure great fun and some fresh air as well.