The fall season has arrived and as the days get shorter and weather gets cooler activity ideas for kids become less abundant. The time of the year also marks your child’s month-in adjustment to a new grade in school. Autumn is certainly a transitional period that will shape their year to come. Every day counts and when it comes to the weekend, you will want to take full advantage. Today, our Foundation is providing you with some inspiration to ensure that fall weekends with your child are ones that result in fun, learning and fond memories.
Four Weekend Activity Ideas for Your Child this Fall Season
1. Experience the Harvest
Autumn is a great time to introduce your child to the community garden concept. The season allows them to experience the fruits of labour, the harvest time. By visiting and engaging in the harvest, your child can experience the final stage of the seed-to-table process. This includes an immersive tutorial on how to pick and preserve produce for distribution and storage. Sustainability is also a key point, as your child can learn about how to store seeds and how to prepare garden soil for next season. They will also learn how an urban gardening program serves the community. This includes farmers market sales, food bank distribution to help battle food insecurity, and other initiatives that community gardening can provide.
The harvest can also be experienced at a local farm or orchard. Farm visits during the harvest provide your child with an understanding of the concept on a grand scale. They will learn about the harvesting process of produce unique to their geography, which includes packing, preserving and distribution. Some farms are home to animals and livestock, which is not only a big plus for your child’s enjoyment, it provides a context that lets them see how pasture-raised farm animals factor into sustainable food production.
2. Autumn Eco-Tour
An eco-tour near you is a great activity for your child in the summer, but the fall season also offers a slew of unique opportunities. There are professional and self-guided options all around you. Let’s look to a fantastic eco-tour in the Lower Mainland of B.C. as an example. The Cheakamus Centre (pictured) in Squamish offers a wide variety of experiential environmental programs to children (and adults). These include nature-based and outdoor activities that are closely tied to the province’s school curriculum. The programs account for youth leadership, recreation and hands-on experience that instill a sense of respect and appreciation for the natural world surrounding young minds.
There are of course many self-guided options for you and your child as well. Referencing the Lower Mainland again, you can plan an autumn afternoon along Tsawwassen’s Boundary Bay. This trail-rich ecological corridor is home to sea life, mud lands and is one of Canada’s most important ecosystems for migrating and wintering birds. There is also a community garden and farm located at the edge of Boundary Bay Regional Park. This is just one of many examples of ecological marvels that are located across Canada. All it takes is a little online investigation and you’ll be surprised at what you and your child will discover. And that’s just the beginning!
4. Online (in Moderation) is OK Too
While we encourage you and your child to enjoy as many outdoor learning experiences as possible, the educational fun need not stop on rainy days and evenings. It’s OK to let your kid enjoy some at-home online time when it encourages them to learn about the interconnecting world around them. This can be accomplished via engaging and inspiring games that allow them to colour, problem solve, read and play games. Our Foundation has a page called Michael & Megan’s Kid Corner that accomplishes all of the above. Kids Corner is also a lifesaver for those autumn days when you want to take the kids to a local coffee shop and keep them busy on your smartphone/tablet while you enjoy a pumpkin-spiced latte.
5. A Good Book (or Two!)
There is nothing quite like cozying up on the sofa with a good book and warm cup of cocoa on a chilly autumn day. While there are countless fantastical reads in your local library and book store, keep in mind that your child should not only exercise their imagination, but their cognitive mind as well. Balance your child’s reading habits with books that help them learn outside of a classroom textbook context. These books should incorporate themes that connect them to the world around them, ones that teach them social, socio, environmental and practical lessons alike. A great place to start is in your backyard of community garden. Our Foundation, together with the talents of Roland Gahler, has released two important children’s books, Plant a Seed & See What Grows and What to Do with What You Grew. Both books can be ordered here.
Do you have any autumn weekend activity ideas for kids that you would like to share? We’d love to hear about them! Follow our Foundation on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google+, find this article on our recently published posts and leave a comment.
