The Fall Funtivities Calendar is here!

It's that time of the year when I retire the flip flops and pull out the cozy slippers and start dreaming of autumn.  I love the chill, the smells, the eats, the snuggles, the football. All of it.  And I love sharing every bit of what I love about fall with my husband and my son.  This year I decided to make a plan for my little family to follow that allows us to celebrate fall a little bit each day from September through November.

Are you ready?

It's time to dig in...

The Meat: Structured Fall-Flavored Activities
I wanted to incorporate a few different traditional family excursions on the weekends as well as some structured activities throughout the week for Newbie and I to enjoy while the daddy-O is at work.  I used this idea and assigned each day a theme to build in a bit of a routine: "Make Something Monday", "Time to Read Tuesday", "What's Cookin' Wednesday", "Be Thoughtful Thursday", "Go Somewhere Fun Friday", then I added in "Savor Saturday" and "Celebrate Sunday".

I assigned fall activities that fit under each category.  Some ideas came from here, and others I came up with on my own. All of the activities are tailored to fit life with a toddler, but you could easily sub-in adult DIY projects or older kid crafts for any of the activities.  If it were me, I wouldn't change much because who doesn't love to carve pumpkins or hit up an apple orchard? But its entirely up to you- it's a flexible system. To be honest, I've been finding oodles of stuff on Pinterest, and I'm already planning on swapping out a few crafts for other ideas I want to try.  That's where the Velcro comes in handy.

The Potatoes: A Hanging Leaf Calendar
I color-coded each activity to match the day of the week, then I printed them off, cut them out and stapled each to a faux leaf. (The staples are ugly.  Don't use staples.  Just glue the paper onto the leaf- I'm a corner cutter and didn't want to wait for the glue to dry. Boo!) I glued a spot of Velcro onto the back of each leaf, and then glued five spots of Velcro down seven strips of ribbon.

The Hubs made me this handy dandy clip display a while back, so when the leaves were complete, I just picked which activities I wanted to do for the month of September and stuck them on the ribbons, which were hanging from the clips like a calendar.  The remaining activities went into organized baggies and will be swapped out for the others as October rolls around.  The beauty of the Velcro is that I can go in there and switch out any activity for another whenever I want to. Also, the whole sha-bang cost me two bucks in dollar store leaves, three dollars in ribbon, for a grand total of FIVE dollars. I used scrap Velcro and my own my mom's printer.  Lovely!

I'll use a tiny clothes pin to attach to the leaf we are doing each day so we can keep track of where we're at.  Each strip of ribbon holds a month's worth of activities for one day of the week, so the layout works like a regular calendar, and we'll just work our way across it horizontally then bump down to the next row at the end of each week.

TA DA!!!

(Newbie's real excited about all the funtivities we have planned.)

Because I like to share, here's our Fall Funtivities Calendar for you to swipe and change and make your own.  If you'd like a copy in a Word document for easy color-coded printing, zip me an email at sprinklesandwrinkles@gmail.com, and I will send one your way!

*I have generalized the list below for the world wide web...my calendar has specific orchards and parks named in each activity.  Also, several activities repeat each month and are listed separately in order to make the list below more easy to copy and use-Sunday might sound like a broken record, but if you do each activity in order, they will only repeat once a month.)

Celebrate Sunday

Visit an Apple Orchard
Enjoy a Fall Picnic
Visit the local Gardens
Have a friend over for a fall-inspired lunch
Visit an Apple Orchard
Enjoy a Fall Picnic
Visit the local Gardens
Have a friend over for a fall-inspired lunch
Visit an Apple Orchard
Enjoy a Fall Picnic
Visit the local Gardens
Have a friend over for a fall-inspired lunch

Make Something Monday

Collect leaves, identify, sort and do leaf rubbings
Make Corn Prints or Apple Prints
Make A Thanksgiving Tree, and each day have family members write one thing they are thankful for
Use felt to cut out and create an autumn-inspired felt board
Make and go fly a kite
Paint Pumpkin faces
Decorate a mini pumpkin
Make a Paint Stick Scarecrow
Make a tree painting using a painted hand for leaves/branches
Make a collage with your fall finds
Make cute button/candy corn napkin rings
Make an owl using leaves and wiggly eyes

Time to Read Tuesday

Visit the library and check out Fall themed books
Host a story time play group at your house, and pull out your favorite Fall books
Visit Barnes and Noble and explore autumn books
Choose a fall book and mimic the activity in the book
Visit the library and check out Fall themed books
Host a story time play group at your house, and pull out your favorite Fall books
Visit Barnes and Noble and explore autumn books
Choose a fall book and mimic the activity in the book
Visit the library and check out Fall themed books
Host a story time play group at your house, and pull out your favorite Fall books
Visit Barnes and Noble and explore autumn books
Choose a fall book and mimic the activity in the book

What’s Cookin’ Wednesday

Make fall scented (cinnamon/apple) play dough
Make pumpkin snickerdoodles
Make Applesauce from scratch
Make pumpkin rice krispie treats
Bake apple pies, or apple cakes and deliver to someone who is under the weather, or in need of some cheering up
Bake and ice fall leaf cookies
Roast Pumpkin Seeds
Make your own marshmallows for roasting over a campfire or for microwave s’mores
Can some jam, veggies, sauces to store up for the winter (introduce your children to hibernation and get some books on animal habitats.)

Bake bread

Bake pumpkin pies
Bake pumpkin muffins

Be Thoughtful Thursday

Make and send a special card to someone on our prayer board
Make homemade apple cider, package up dry ingredients for gifts for the mail man, neighbors, etc.
Invite a friend to an apple orchard and treat them to an apple cider slush
Participate in a canned food drive
Make and send a special card to someone on our prayer board
Invite a friend over for lunch
Make hand and feet print art and send it to someone special
Help rake someone else’s yard
Use apple stamps to make decorate thank-you notes for Nursery volunteers
Invite a friend to an apple orchard and treat them to an apple cider slush
Make and send a special card to someone on our prayer board
Make hand and feet print art and send it to someone special

Go Somewhere Fun Friday

Go to a high school Football Game
Take a Nature Walk
Go to the local Gardens
Go to a Park
Go to a Park
Take a friend to the park to feed the ducks
Host a fall scavenger hunt at a Park- invite friends!
Take a Nature Walk
Go to the local Gardens
Go to a Park
Go to a Park
Take a friend to the park to feed the ducks

Savor it Saturday

Take trip to the zoo
Visit the apple orchard
Visit a pumpkin patch and get pumpkins!
Go to a college Game
Host a Harvest Potluck Party
Go to a Harvest Festival.
Go to a farmers market.
Have a fall bonfire- roast hot dogs and marshmallows
Go Camping- at a site or in the backyard
Go to The Zoo goes Boo!
Go to Grandparents’ house to watch a football game
Go to Grandma and Grandpa’s to visit the farmer’s stand

 Happy Autumn-ing!

 (Fall 2010, Newbie at 6 months old)