Looking for local activities that cater to kids and families this fall? Look no further than your fingertips! The internet is a great resource for endless ideas of local fun in your community. Check out some of the great websites:

1. Frugal Canvases: Covering school books with a paper bag or white (butcher-type) paper, will protect those books and give your little artist a whole new canvas to design and make their own!  Since we know some parents may be out of practice, here’s how to get those covers on.
2. Get Outside: Fall is a beautiful time of year, go on a journey around your neighborhood or backyard and collect a good variety of leaves. This is a fun activity to do with your children to get them outside and learning about their environment.
3. Make Leaf Rubbings:  Create your own fall picture by collecting different types of leafs, placing them under a piece of paper and rubbing over them lightly with a colored pencil or crayon. You can also put your paper on a tree bark to get a cool background texture.  Click here to see how.  
4. Take a Hike:  Trails.com has an interactive trail map, and lets you search by zip and by your favorite activity.  While on your hike follow these simple tips for keeping your most precious cargo (no matter how small!) safe, happy and comfortable.
5. Go Apple Picking:   Find a local orchard and go apple picking.  Most orchards open up in the early parts of September and offer a variety of family activities!
6. Bake Something New: Not sure what to do with all those apples?  Pie is not the only option! There are hundreds of delicious apple recipes, including these kid-friendly options.
7. Get Crafty with Apples: Cut apples in half to create an apple-stamp bag, dry a few for funny-faced apple dolls and sour puss puppets or carve a set of candleholders.
8. Make a Fossil:  A little modeling clay and some Plaster of Paris will let you turn a leaf, or almost any other object found in nature into a permanent keepsake! How about preserving your leaf (and all of its amazing color) with one of these three methods?
9. Get Organized: Back-to-school is an exciting, but an undoubtedly hectic time of the year. Get the family involved and make organizing fun with this article from Kaboose fun organizational crafts for back-to-school.
10. Hand Crafted Costumes: Start now by making a plan and dole it out one week at a time!  Buy your supplies now while back-to-school sales are still around and don’t forget the necessities like no-sew tape (found at fabric and hobby stores) and a good role of duct tape! Here is a wonderful resource to get you started on ideas.
11. Take a Hike:  Hiking, biking, and walking are great ways to wind down after the first few busy weeks of back-to-school time. Trails.com has an interactive trail map, and lets you search by zip and by your favorite activity.  While on your hike follow these simple tips for keeping your most precious cargo safe, happy and comfortable.
12. Go Camping: Camping is a family activity that provides endless hours of fun and lifetime memories. This site is a good resource to find local camping grounds. This website has some fun activities for the whole family to do while camping.
13. Visit a Pumpkin Patch: Pumpkin picking is a favorite fall activity and gives kids reality on where pumpkins come from. While you walk around the piles of pumpkins, talk about the different sizes, weights and shades of orange. Have fun baking pies and pumpkin seeds, before or after you spend time carving together. This site is a great help in finding fun pumpkin patches and corn mazes in your area!
14. Visit a Corn Maze:  Pumpkin patches often come with corn mazes which are excellent spatial experiences. These three dimensional puzzles will appeal to your visual kids because of their strong spatial skills. This site is a great help in finding fun pumpkin patches and corn mazes in your area!
15. Create a Scarecrow: Scarecrows are a typical fall decoration but kids may not understand what they are used for and where they came from. Building a scarecrow is a hands-on, visual tactile experience on size, shapes and proportions of body parts, along with lots of fun decorative color and texture choices. Here is a website all about creating scarecrows.
16. Leaf Masks: Just one more fun thing to to this fall with all those leaves floating around outdoors. Here is a step by step how to click here!
17. Squash Bowling: A super fun game that kids can create AND play. Click here.
18. Wall Football: A totally hip take on “pin the tail on the donkey”, sure to entice the sports fans and the kids in the room. Click here.
19. Fun up the Yard: Rake leaves into a pile and JUMP! Reminisce with your children and be playful!
20. Play Touch/Flag Football: A classic fall game sure to get everyone out of their seats, play outside in the yard or gather a big group and hit the local park!
21. Host a chili cook-off: This is a fun way to get the kids involved in the kitchen and a yummy way to get the neighbors involved.
22. Paint pumpkins: Instead of carving pumpkins this year try painting them. Each child can use their own imagination to come up with their unique design.
23. Roast pumpkin seeds: Here is a great pumpkin seed recipe for this fall treat.
24. Make Jello Worms: They gross us out, which probably means the kids will LOVE them!
25. Take a Hay Ride: The best way to really soak up fall? A Hay ride! Get the whole family together and look for one near you. Local pumpkin patches in your area click here.
26. Make Caramel Apples: A delicious treat the kiddos will have to work for. This easy recipe is the perfect activity to get the kids into the kitchen and out of trouble!
27. Fall Bingo: BINGO! The best game for holiday parties, birthday parties and even slow Saturdays. Here is a great link to a FALL THEMED Bingo Board.

Want more? Check out our Pinterest page for updated seasonal activities as they come!!

Bette Fetter Founder and CEO of Young Rembrandts and Author of Being Visual [email protected] Follow Bette on Twitter