Welcome to my October activities for kids post! Every month of 2021 I have put together some simple ideas for you and your children to make and create together at home. If you’re new to my seasonal activities post then welcome! Each month we share a mixture of indoor, outdoor ideas, recipes and resources.
The reason I decided to start sharing seasonal play ideas came from my love of the change of seasons. I love to note and celebrate the seasons in terms of nature, decor, food, and everything in between. Mix that with my childcare background and this monthly post became a place to produce some inspiration for kids’ activities for every month of the year.
I love all things Hygge and I’m a believer that it is for all the family to enjoy not just for my own self care. This infographic sums up October Hygge for the kids and family.
This month we’re continuing to look at Autumnal crafts and we have also added in some Halloween activities. Every month at the end of the post you will find helpful resources.
October Activities for Kids
Indoor Activities
Conker Play
The winds have been blustery this past week which means the leaves up here in Yorkshire have started to fall and with it come the conkers. Conkers are seen as treasure in our house and often fill up baskets around the house, especially as they’re meant to keep the spiders away!
Conker Play Dough
You will need
Conkers
Play Dough
Spaghetti
Conkers make the perfect loose parts accessory for play dough. My little ones enjoyed making these hedgehogs and conker people.
If you’re looking for more conker play ideas then click here
Autumn Sensory Bin
There are different combinations you can make up for an autumn sensory tray, keep it simple by using stuff you have at home. Fill a tray with a bases such as rice, oats, cereal or chickpeas. Then add in leaves, pinecones, sticks, pumpkins, autumn decorations, figurines, tractors, tweezers, chopsticks, scoops and cups.
Pick a Pumpkin play dough
You will need
Orange Play dough
Craft embellishments – Pipe cleaners, googly eyes
Sticks, Cinnamon sticks, cloves etc
This sensory play tray is great fun. We used loose parts from our craft box and added some dyed rice / chickpeas for added texture. You can use nature loose parts or bits from your spice cupboards!
We use our own Bear and Boo play dough kits.
Mummy Pizzas
You will need
Puff pastry
Pizza sauce
Mozzarella
These easy cheat pizzas look great and taste delicious. They are little cheese and tomato pockets of loveliness. Simply roll out ready made puff pastry and using the straight edge of a medium cookie cutter and cut out 9 circles and place on a lined baking sheet. Top the pastry with 1/2- 1 teaspoon of tomato and basil pizza sauce and cover with a sprinkling of grated mozzarella cheese. With the remaining pastry cut out thin strips and layer them over the pizza circles like a mummy’s bandages. Then cut up black olives for eyes and bake in a preheated fan oven at 180 for 15 minutes.
Banana Ghosts
A brilliant simple but creepy Halloween food idea that isn’t as healthy as it sounds but is too good to resist!
Peel and cut a banana in half. Pop a lolly stick in and place in the freezer for 15 minutes. Meanwhile melt white chocolate in the microwave preferable on a microwavable plate as it’s easier to roll the banana on a plate then dip in a bowl. Take the cold banana out the freezer and roll in the chocolate and quickly decorate with chocolate chips for eyes. Once cooled they make a great little halloween snack for all.
Visit here for more Halloween food ideas
Pumpkin Hammering
Wooden golf tees
Pumpkin
We did this activity last year and the kids loved it. I purchased a big bag of wooden golf tees from sports direct. You could also use very thick sticks. We have a small tool set from Ikea that the kids can use so we supervised them using the small hammer to hammer them into the pumpkin.
Pumpkin Painting
Paint Sticks
Pumpkins
If the above activity is a little daunting then give this a go! Give your little ones paint sticks to decorate pumpkins.
Outdoor Activities
Mine love wrapping up and getting out in the garden for short bursts at this time of year. One of their favourite activities last October was cleaning their pumpkins from the patch!
Mud Kitchen Recipes
In Septembers activities for kids I included two mud kitchen recipes. We have come up with two new ones; pumpkin soup and conker pie!
You can grab your free printable downloads here
Spooky Torch walk
Our littles love to explore outside just before bedtime now the nights are drawing in. They get changed into cozy onesies and take torches or lightsabers out for a leg stretch around the block. We encourage them to walk part way without torches to use their night vision. looking for things to spot such as bats, cats out for a prowl and looking at the moon. I have popped a night explorer book in my resources section that is great for little explorers.
Autumn Picnic
If you prefer exploring during the daytime then we have several Autumn picnic ideas in this post.
Pumpkin Bird Feeder
Pumpkin
Bird Seed
String
Once you’ve scooped out the pumpkin fill it with bird seed, the pumpkin seeds and a bit of pumpkin flesh. Then make holes in the pumpkin to hang it from a tree.
I hope you have enjoyed these October activities for kids and all that is left to share is some books that we enjoy or are lusting over this autumn!
October Resources
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