01/10/2026
10 autumn activities for your little ones 🍁🍂🥰
1. Autumn treasure baskets -
Fill a basket with large leaves, pinecones, chunky sticks and interesting natural textures for little ones to explore, sort and investigate.
Try asking: “Which feels rough? Which is crunchy?”
2. Autumn leaf printing -
Paint the undersides of fallen leaves and press them onto paper to reveal their veins and patterns. Use autumn colours such as orange, red, yellow and brown.
Perfect for: exploring patterns and colour mixing.
3. Make a miniature autumn forest -
Fill a shallow tray with soil, leaves, moss and sticks. Add toy woodland animals and let children build homes, hiding places and little forest paths.
Perfect for: imaginative play and exploring habitats.
4. Leafy hedgehog collages -
Draw or print a simple hedgehog outline, then let children stick fallen leaves onto its back to make spines. Add eyes and a nose.
Perfect for: little hands practising sticking and placing.
5. Pumpkin guts sensory play -
Scoop the stringy insides and seeds from a pumpkin into a tray. Offer spoons, scoops and bowls so children can explore the slippery, squishy textures.
Perfect for: a wonderfully messy autumn afternoon.
6. Autumn mud kitchen -
Give children old pots, wooden spoons, water, mud, leaves and petals. Encourage them to make “leaf soup”, conker cakes or woodland potions.
Perfect for: open-ended play with no right or wrong outcome.
7. Create an autumn sticky tree -
Stick clear vinyl sticky-side-out onto a window or wall, with a tree trunk drawn underneath. Children can stick on leaves to create a colourful autumn canopy.
Perfect for: an easy, low-prep activity with minimal mess.
8. Conker rolling art -
Put paper in a shallow tray, add blobs of washable paint and roll large conkers through it to make swirling autumn patterns. Adults should handle the conkers and supervise closely.
Perfect for: experimenting with movement, marks and colour.
9. Make an autumn nature mandala -
Collect fallen leaves, petals and sticks, then arrange them in circles, spirals or patterns on the ground/tray
Perfect for: noticing shapes, patterns and seasonal colours.
10. Autumn colour mixing
