Fall Treasures

Fall is such a great time for walks and adventures on your local trails or even in your backyard and around your neighborhood. Plants are changing and and dying, but it is actually an especially great time to collect different parts of plants that have gone to seed. These fall treasures are little bits of nature that your kids can search for and embrace throughout the season.

Three girls walking in fall Child's hand with seeds Two girls in fall

Sometimes I feel sad that my garden is “done” for this year and I forget to just look around and see what treasures our plants still have to give. I encourage my kids to step outside and take a look. You will see many different shapes and sizes of seeds that have fallen to the ground from trees and plants. This is a great way to get kids exploring outdoors around your neighborhood, on a nearby trail or even in your backyard!

Some tips and ideas:

Bring a bag or bucket for collecting - kids have so much fun if they are “on the lookout for something special”
Talk about how why they are on the ground and how they might travel (something might eat them, they get stuck on your cloths, they cling to dog’s fur, squirrels might move them)
Lay them out and sort by size, shape, type or color
See if you can figure out which tree or plant they came from
Compare different sizes and shapes and see if you can figure out why they might be that shape or size

For bigger kids: In addition to the above, bigger kids might have fun sorting and storing their collection to plant next year. This was a fun way to clean out our garden this fall and still try to keep some of the seeds from our favorite plants. We collected the seeds from our favorite plants and sorted them. Then we let them dry out and put them in paper bags and labeled each one. In the spring we’ll do some research about when to plant them and where they might grow best. We had some leftover party favor bags that worked for storage, but any paper bag or sack should work fine.

Other fun fall activities:

use fallen leaves, sticks, berries to create your own animals or people
Fall scavenger hunt (you can also shift this around and use a holiday theme and go on a hunt for different decorations too)
Acorns and bigger seeds can also be collected and turned into people or animals
Look for sticks in different shapes and that make different letters. Put the letters together to make words. The “y” stick is really popular in our house right now.
Use dried grasses and plants in vases for autumn decor